THE. 

FRIENDSHIP 
OF  JESUS 


ROBERT  WELLS 
VEACH 


871. 
s 


The  Friendship  of  Jesus 


BV  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  King  and  His  Kingdom 

Constructive    Studies   in  the    Life  of 

Christ.     i2mo,  paper .33 

l2mo,  cloth, 60 

"  A  suggestive  and  somewhat  exhaust- 
ive study  of  Christ's  life  arranged  for 
Bible  classes,  by  Robert  Wells  Veach. 
It  is  excellently  arranged  for  a  text- 
book ;  avoids  critical  questions,  and 
aims  to  give  one  a  knowledge  of  the 
New  Testament  account.  It  is  not  a 
discussion  in  any  sense,  but  a  capital 
text-book,  each  lesson  to  be  mastered 
in   twenty  minutes'    study." — Service. 


The  Friendship  of  Jesus 


The  Secret  of  a  Victorious  Life 


Y 

ROBERT  WELLS  VEACH,  M.  A.,  D.D. 

Professor  of  Religious   Education  and  Dean  of 

the  Faculty  in  the  Bible  Teachers^  Training 

School,  New   Tork   City. 


New     York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming     H.     Revell      Company 


London 


AND 


Edinburgh 


Copyright,  191 1,  by 
FLEMING  H,  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


To  my  dear  wife 

HARRIETT  McLJUGHRT  VEACH, 

and  to  my  little  dazcghters, 

ELIZABETH  and  HARRIETT, 

this  book  is  affectionately 
dedicated 


Foreword 

THE  friendship  of  Jesus  is  a  royal  host 
alike  to  shepherds  and  to  kings.  It  is 
well-nigh  universal  in  its  appeal.  It 
speaks  to  the  young  heart  in  its  passionate  outgoing 
after  the  heroic  and  the  ideal ;  to  all  those  lonely 
and  discouraged  souls  who  have  not  yet  discovered 
then'  real  glory ;  to  the  sorely  tempted,  the  sin- 
sick,  the  deeply  sorrowful,  and  to  those  who  are 
struggling  with  doubt.  For  all  such  this  little 
book  has  been  written. 

All  true  friendship  breathes  the  tenderest  and 
most  fragrant  sentiment,  just  as  the  rose  exhales 
perfume;  but,  like  the  rose,  it  must  live  by  the 
laws  of  its  own  nature.  We  must  be  true  to  the 
laws  of  psychology,  of  ethics,  and  of  God's  Spirit 
if  we  would  share  with  Jesus  His  Friendship. 

I  have  scarcely  mentioned  the  wonderful  friend- 
ship between  Jesus  and  His  three  great  apostles, 
Peter,  John  and  Paul.  Should  this  effort  find  a 
place  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  read  it,  I  will 
write  again  about  Jesus  and  some  of  His  friends. 

May  I  here  express  my  deep  appreciation  of  the 
encouragement    and    faithful    criticism    of  many 

friends. 

E.  W.  V. 

New  York. 

7 


Contents 

Prelude — Intimations  of  the  Divine  Friendship        .       1 1 

PART  I 
The  Fact  of  His  Friendship 

I.  A  Fact  of  Experience  .  .  .  .15 

II.  Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements  .        24 

III.  Its    Meaning    for    the    Individual  and  for 

Society       .  .  ....        36 

IV.  Its  Divine  Foreshadowing   ....       47 

V.  An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact     .         .       58 

PART  II 

The  Realization  of  His  Friendship 

VI.  Through  the  Loneliness  of  Sin    ...       73 

VII.  Through    the  Loneliness    of    Great  Ideals 

AND  Their  Temptations        .  .  .81 

VIII.  In  the  Loneliness  of  Doubt  and  the  Mys- 

tery of  Nature  .....       93 

IX.  In  the  Open  Air  and  the  World  of  Work      102 

X.  In  the  Loneliness  of  Suffering,  Sorrow  and 

Death 115 


Prelude 

Intimations  of  the  Divine  Friendship 

ONE  summer  day  a  barefoot  boy  wandered 
through  a  woodland  wide  and  wild.  He 
had  done  ^vrong  that  day,  and  all  his  path 
was  filled  with  tangled  brush  and  thorns.  Lonely 
was  that  little  lad.  It  seemed  as  if  nobody  loved 
him  and  the  cruel  briars  tore  his  limbs  and  made 
them  bleed.  At  last  he  reached  an  open  place  and 
sat  him  on  a  mound  where  many  mosses  grew  and 
one  wild  flower.  The  moss  caressed  his  feet  and 
the  Little  flower  was  kind  to  him.  It  was  the  fair- 
est flower  that  he  had  ever  seen.  Its  stem  was  tall 
and  slender  and  its  snowy  petals  were  as  perfect  as 
a  piece  of  finest  lace.  It  seemed  so  happy  playing 
mth  the  wind,  and  many  woodland  friends  kissed 
it  as  they  fluttered  by.  Alone  it  seemed  not  lone- 
some in  its  mossy  bed.  Do  all  the  flowers  obey 
and  only  little  boys  do  wrong  ?  "  Stung  by  the 
splendor  of  a  sudden  thought,"  the  lad  arose  and 
ran  unheeding  through  the  tangled  thickets  till  he 
came  upon  a  peaceful  meadow  where  many  cattle 
stood,  knee-deep  in  buttercups  and  clover.  A 
brook  ran  through  the  field,  and  at  the  farther  end 
upon  a  sunny  slope  stood  home,  and  there  was 
mother. 

11 


1 2  Prelude 

A  stream  of  running  water  is  a  royal  roadway  to 
a  barefoot  boy.  Compared  with  wave-washed  peb- 
bles, pearl-imbedded  pavements  are  commonplace. 
Two  dirty,  dimpled  feet  splashed  through  the 
water.  He  caught  the  minnow's  silvery  gleam ;  the 
merry  brook  sang  to  him  and  all  the  while  he 
gathered  buttercups  with  now  and  then  a  spray  of 
clover.  At  last  he  took  the  orchard  path  that 
wound  around  the  house  where  mother  sat  upon  the 
porch  and  pared  the  first  new  apples  for  a  pie.  She 
smiled  a  welcome  and  her  face  seemed  fair  and  finer 
than  his  new-found  flower.  He  laid  his  golden 
tribute  in  her  lap,  whispered  something  in  her  ear 
and  love's  forgiving  kiss  lay  moist  upon  his  cheek, 
like  a  dewdrop  on  a  rose  leaf,  the  perfect  gift  of 
heaven  to  a  thirsty  heart. 

That  night,  they  knelt  together  e'er  she  tucked 
him  in  his  little  bed  and  angel  hands  wove  sleep's 
sweet  mystic  web  about  his  mind.  He  dreamed  of 
a  mossy  mound  and  one  fair  flower.  Again  he 
waded  through  the  stream  until  the  meadow  and  the 
brook  became  a  shining  river.  He  played  upon  its 
shore,  watched  its  opalescent  hues,  and  heard  deli- 
cious music.  All  the  while  an  unseen  friend  stood 
by  his  side  and  whispered  deep  secrets  to  his  sleep- 
ing soul.  Then  a  wondrous  light  broke  over  all 
and  morning  dawned  fresh  and  sweet  and  pure. 
Thus  the  divine  friendship  grows  up  all  unknown 
within  the  souls  of  men. 


PART  I 
The  Fact  of  His  Friendship 


A  FACT  OF  EXPEEIENCE 

ONCE  I  had  a  philosophy  of  perfect  friend- 
ship. Now  I  have  a  perfect  Friend. 
Once  I  trusted  and  reasoned  about  a 
beautiful  theory.  Now  I  trust  and  reason  about 
a  beautiful  fact — the  friendship  of  Jesus.  How 
changed  my  views  as  each  day  some  new  disclosure 
of  His  friendship  makes  its  impact  upon  my  per- 
sonality !     Wonderful  mystery  of  life  ! 

Once  in  those  careless  college  days  a  great  temp- 
tation grappled  with  me.  It  would  have  throttled 
all  my  aspirations  had  not  an  unseen  Friend  stood 
by  me  and  made  me  strong  for  battle.  I  did  not 
then  know  who  He  was,  but  I  was  never  after  quite 
the  same  man.  My  ideals  were  just  a  little  higher, 
my  perceptions  of  truth  and  beauty  were  just  a  lit- 
tle clearer.  My  sense  of  duty  grew  daily  stronger 
and  I  found  it,  ever  after,  more  difficult  to  be 
ignoble  or  impure.  There  were  deep  stirrings 
within  me,  followed  by  faint  outlines  of  a  finer  self. 
Then  began  the  passionate  quest  of  my  soul. 

During  my  seminary  days,  a  group  of  us  went, 
one  Sunday  evening,  to  hold  a  gospel  service  in  a 
ten-cent  lodging  house  in  lower  New  York.  It 
was  bitter  cold ;  and  more  than  sixty  men,  mere 

15 


1 6  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

fragments  of  lost  opportunities,  were  crowded  into 
a  hot,  close  room.  The  mingled  fumes  of  liquor 
and  tobacco  almost  strangled  us.  Bleared  faces 
leered  at  us  from  shadowy  corners.  "  Curses  from  a 
near-by  card  table  punctuated  our  first  2)rayer.  Oh, 
it  seemed  blasphemy  to  speak  His  name  in  such  a 
place  !  How  could  He  be  there  in  the  midst  of  a 
scene  so  unlovely !  Stepping  out  from  the  little 
group  I  delivered  a  ten  minute  address.  It  com- 
plied with  all  the  rules  of  homiletics  save  one ;  it 
lacked  reality.  When  I  had  finished  it  was  as  if  I 
had  not  spoken.  Then  the  sexton  of  the  Sea  and 
Land  Mission,  who  was  with  us,  spoke  to  the  men. 
He  was  an  old  coal  miner,  who  had  followed  the 
dark  windings  of  two  underworlds.  He  had  found 
a  Frien^  and  he  was  simply  telling  his  fallen 
brothers  about  his  beautiful  new-found  friendship. 
Soon  all  were  listening.  A  secret,  inarticulate 
longing  overspread  each  eager  face.  They  were 
drawn  to  him  as  steel  filings  to  a  mighty  magnet. 
Then  it  was  that  the  scales  fell  from  my  eyes  and  I 
saw  my  Lord  face  to  face.  He  was  there.  Kot  a 
sharply  defined  person,  but  a  tender,  brooding 
presence  that  filled  all  the  room.  It  seemed  as  if 
we  were  all  being  absorbed  into  one  great  heart  of 
love.  We  left  the  upper  room,  went  down  the  dark 
winding  stairs  and  out  into  the  snow-blanketed  city. 
Truly  it  was  clothed  with  light  as  with  a  garment, 
for  He  was  there.  He  was  not  only  in  church  and 
chapel  with  chanting  choir  and  swinging  censer, 
for  Christ  cannot  be  shut  up  within  stone  walls  or 


A  Fact  of  Experience  17 

imprisoned  in  a  rubric.  With  outstretched  arms 
Pie  all  but  touched  each  weary  passerby  while  that 
great  "  choir  invisible  "  chanted  "  Come  unto  Me  all 
ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden  and  I  will  give 
you  rest."  Thus  there  came  into  my  life  the  Friend 
divine.  All  the  passionate  powers  of  youth  leaped 
forth  to  do  His  biddmg.  For  the  first  time  I  knew 
the  meaning  of  those  words  of  Paul,  "  To  me  to 
live  is  Christ,  to  die  is  gain."  Gladly  for  such  a 
Friend  would  I  spend  and  be  spent  in  the  service  of 
my  fellow  men. 

Years  passed  and  many  times  the  clear  conscious- 
ness of  this  beautiful  friendship  of  Jesus  was  lost 
through  doubt  or  sin  or  selfish  disobedience.  Yery 
often  it  would  recede  into  the  background  of  my 
daily  life,  deeply  influencing  me,  but  not  so  con- 
sciously present ;  for  it  is  impossible  long  to  main- 
tain so  glorious  an  experience.  Yet  His  friendship 
is  continuous  and  developing,  a  great  inward  reality 
that  slowly  purifies  and  assimilates  the  lesser  soul 
into  its  larger  and  diviner  self.  So  completely  does 
the  friendship  of  Jesus  cleanse  my  conscience, 
penetrate  all  my  thinking,  move  through  all  my 
motives,  and  reflect  itself  in  all  my  judgments,  that 
it  may  be  said,  in  a  very  true  sense,  that  Christ  is 
most  consciously  present  with  me  when  I  am  least 
conscious  of  His  presence.  Small  persons  are  ob- 
trusive in  their  efl'orts  to  dominate  the  lives  of  men. 
Only  the  great  can  fully  eiface  themselves  as 
they  seek  to  control  the  wills  of  others  by  lead- 
ing them  out  into  a  rightful  expression  of  their 


l8  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

freedom.  The  union  of  Jesus  with  His  friends  is 
complete. 

With  the  years,  my  friendship  with  my  Lord  has 
ripened  into  a  personal  affection  that  has  become 
the  most  precious  of  possessions,  for  it  has  filled  all 
my  other  friendships  and  has  made  them  both  beau- 
tiful and  immortal. 

We  walk  and  work  together,  for  He  is  ever  with 
me.  Apart  from  His  strong  sweet  spirit  I  can  be 
neither  brave  nor  gentle.  Yery  often  we  seek  a 
quiet  place ;  it  is  a  sacred  tryst  where  love  meets 
love  with  every  passion  purified.  Again,  in  the 
wild  rush  of  the  busy  world  where  He  loves  so 
much  to  meet  with  those  who  toil,  we  mark  off  a 
little  circle  and  talk  together.  Friendship  with 
Jesus  is  the  true  sanctuary  of  the  spirit ;  here  we 
touch  God  breast  to  breast  and  live  anew  in  His 
love.  He  who  enters  therein  must  first  rend  his 
heart  and  not  his  garments,  then  will  he  pass  from 
the  turmoil  and  strife  of  soul  into  the  holy  calm  of 
eternity.  Prayer  is  the  sweet  fellowship  of  friend 
with  friend,  a  mutual  self-giving  with  an  inrush  of 
life  and  love  and  power  from  the  larger  to  the  lesser 
soul.  Thus  God  flows  into  the  shallows  of  our 
little  lives.  The  hour  of  prayer  is  the  setting  in  of 
the  tide. 

I  love  to  make  Him  known  to  those  who  know 
Him  not.  We  talk  about  the  Beautiful  Life  until 
another  lonely  heart  burns  with  the  glow  of  a  new- 
found friendship  and  my  own  is  made  the  sweeter 
and  the  stronger  for  sharing  its  joy. 


A  Fact  of  Experience  19 

Sometimes  I  have  grieved  Him  deeply  by  my 
folly  and  my  sin,  but  He  has  never  left  me.  He 
trusts  me  more  than  I  trust  Him  and  because  of  this, 
His  friendship  is  the  stronger.  He  only  goes  apart 
a  while  and  His  sad  and  wondrous  eyes  look  me 
through  until  my  heart  is  filled  with  the  agony  of 
remorse.  But  He  never  chides  me  and  oh,  He  is  so 
strong  and  tender !  Never,  while  memory  lasts, 
shall  I  ever  forget  the  many  times  when,  in  the 
dark  night  of  blinding  passion,  I  would  have  slipped 
over  the  brink,  but  He  drew  me  back  ;  "  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  through  which  the  world  hath  been 
crucified  unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  world."  If  by 
Him  I  have  died  unto  the  earthliness  and  sensuality 
of  this  little  world,  be  it  known  that  He  has  made 
me  alive  to  the  spiritual  meaning  of  a  thousand 
greater  worlds.  "Within  His  fathomless  soul  I  find 
sweeping  circles  of  truth,  of  whose  existence  I  can 
grasp  but  a  mere  segment.  The  abiding  friendship 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  has  been  the  vitalizing  and 
ennobling  force  in  all  the  slow  and  painful  evolu- 
tion of  my  faith  and  ideals.  With  His  gracious  in- 
dwelling there  has  come  to  me  an  expansiveness  of 
culture  where  "  latitude  widens,  longitude  length- 
ens "  and  the  doors  of  the  soul  swing  wide  open 
to  plunging  cataracts,  and  broadening  zones,  and 
far-off  groups  of  differently  colored  men,  and  the 
vast  dignity  of  our  God. 

There  was  a  time  when  my  pinched  and  sordid 
life  could  see  no  beauty  in  ray  Saviour,  but  now  be- 


20  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

fore  His  wondrous  face  my  soul  stands  enraptured. 
I  have  often  walked  in  dewy  fields  when  incense- 
breathing  morn  with  amber  beauty  shone,  but  fairer 
far  it  is  to  walk  amid  those  sinless  years,  whose 
growing  lustre  falls  like  a  sunlit  mantle  over  all  the 
fields  of  time.  Fairer  is  He  than  the  morning, 
fairer  than  the  noontide,  fairer  than  the  purple 
evening  with  its  fading  glory  breathed  from  out  the 
bosom  of  the  boundless  sea. 

The  friendship  of  Jesus  is  the  encompassing  fact 
of  Chiistian  experience.  In  the  clear  presence  of 
His  certain  knovdedge,  doubt  fijids  its  deepest 
sympathy.  Sin-stained  lives  creep  to  His  feet, 
bathe  them  with  their  tears  and  rise  to  purity  and 
power.  Within  friendship's  loving  embrace  the 
weary  heartache  of  the  world  takes  refuge,  while, 
on  the  breast  divine,  sorrow  sobs  itself  through 
grief  to  joy  unspeakable.  It  is  He  that  dwells  in 
that  "  mystic,  sacred  shadow  of  advancing  years, 
transfiguring  the  countenance  wearied  by  toil  with 
portents  of  immortality." 

His  friendship  is  the  water  of  life  that  wells  up 
perpetually  from  the  unplumbed  depths  of  the  soul. 
"  I  would  not,  brethren,  have  you  ignorant,  that  our 
fathers  did  all  drink  the  same  spiritual  drink :  for 
they  drank  of  a  spiritual  rock  that  followed  them  : 
and  the  rock  was  Christ."  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let 
him  come  unto  Me  and  drink.  He  that  belie veth 
on  Me,  as  the  Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  the  depths 
of  his  life  shall  pour  torrents  of  living  water.  But 
this  spake  He  of  the  Spirit  which  they  that  be- 


A  Fact  of  Experience  2 1 

lieved  on  Him  were  to  receive."  All  our  earthly 
friendships,  all  our  finer  sentiments,  and  all  our 
Chi'istian  graces  are  but  the  spray  of  this  never- 
ceasing  fountam. 

"  O  Christ,  He  is  the  Fountain, 
The  deep  sweet  Well  of  Love ! 
The  streams  on  earth  I've  tasted 
More  deep, I'll  drink  above  : 
There  to  an  ocean  fullness 
His  mercy  doth  expand, 
And  glory,  glory  dwelleth 
In  Emmanuel's  land." 

But  there  is  a  still  more  glorious  side  to  this  pro- 
found truth.  Oh,  daring  thought  that  when  my 
soul  shall  draw  near  to  that  dear  Fountain  and  shall 
drink  its  full  of  Him,  He  in  turn  shall  drink  His 
full  of  me !  Isaiah,  in  his  vision  of  the  suffering 
servant,  gives  us  perhaps  the  most  deeply  religious 
expression  of  this  great  truth.  With  recurrent  sobs 
of  joy  he  sings :  "  It  pleased  Jehovah  to  bruise 
Him ;  He  hath  put  Him  to  grief  :  when  thou  shalt 
make  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin.  He  shall  see  His 
seed :  He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and 
shaU  be  satisfied."  Shall  I  ever  be  able  to  offer 
even  so  much  as  one  drop  to  quench  the  pangs  of 
travail  over  the  sin  of  a  lost  world  ?  And  yet  the 
constant  making  of  all  our  life  is  but  the  turning 
of  a  cup  upon  the  potter's  wheel  and  "  not  even 
while  the  whirl  was  worst  .  .  .  did  I  mistake 
my  end,  to  slake  Thy  thirst."  Each  humble  act 
of  service  is  but  the  holding  up  of  life's  chaKced 


22  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

cup  to  the  lips  of  Him  who  is  our  Saviour  and  our 
Friend.  "  And  whosoever  shall  give  to  drink  unto 
one  of  these  little  ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,  in 
the  name  of  a  disciple,  verily  I  say  unto  you  he 
shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward."  "For  I  was 
hungry,  and  ye  gave  Me  to  eat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and 
ye  gave  Me  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took 
Me  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  Me  ;  I  was  sick,  and 
ye  visited  Me  ;  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto 
Me.  .  .  .  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of 
these  My  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto 
Me." 

It  is  the  friendship  of  God  revealed  in  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ  for  human  life  that  constitutes  the 
heart  of  all  religion.  The  experience  of  any  one 
person  cannot  pretend  to  exhaust  it,  much  less  be 
absolute  authority  for  any  other  person.  Because 
of  the  vast  unity  of  His  Spirit,  God  delights  in 
variety  -within  the  species.  Man  is  as  the  countless 
trees  that  make  the  forest.  The  Lord  knoweth 
His  own  and  deals  with  every  soul  individually ;  so 
also  each  weary,  aching  heart  has  its  own  secret 
bias  towards  God.  There  is  dignity  and  majesty 
in  such  a  thought.  It  makes  the  simple  great  and 
the  great  sublime.  Oh,  man  beneath  life's  crushing 
load,  look  up  from  the  sweltering  vale  where  thou 
dost  toil,  look  up  beyond  the  bending  sky  that 
shuts  thee  in,  for  thy  heavenly  Father  knoweth 
thee  by  name.  Through  thine  own  heart  of  faith 
shall  He  whisper  to  thy  wondering  soul  deep 
secrets  of  His  everlasting  friendship. 


A  Fact  of  Experience  23 

Notwithstanding  this  intense  individuality  ap- 
parent in  religious  experience,  there  is,  back  of  it 
all  and  through  it  all,  that  which  is  the  common 
possession  of  the  race  and  to  which  our  inmost  con- 
victions universally  respond.  "  For  a  Person  came, 
and  lived  and  loved,  and  did  and  taught,  and  died 
and  rose  again,  and  lives  on  by  His  Power  and  His 
Spirit  forever  within  us  and  amongst  us,  so  un- 
speakably rich  and  yet  so  simple,  so  sublime  and 
yet  so  homely,  so  divinely  above  us  precisely  in 
being  so  divinely  near, — that  His  character  and 
teaching  require,  for  an  ever  fuller  yet  never  com- 
plete understanding,  the  varying  study,  and  differ- 
ent experiments  and  applications,  embodiments  and 
unrolLings  of  all  the  races  and  civilizations,  of  all 
the  individual  and  corporate,  the  simultaneous  and 
successive  experiences  of  the  human  race  to  the  end 
of  time."  The  friendship  of  Jesus  organizes  that 
mysterious  alchemy  that  transmutes  the  will  of 
God  into  human  history.  It  is  that  subtle,  elusive, 
inexplainable  something  that  lies  back  of  and 
baffles  all  historical  analysis,  and  yet  of  whose  per- 
sistent presence  the  heart  of  man  is  yearningly 
conscious.  O  Christ,  Thou  purest  Spirit  of  his- 
tory! wistfully  we  cry  unto  Thee;  woo  us,  and 
wean  us,  and  winnow  us  until  we,  too,  shall  feel 
the  inborn  thrill  of  Thy  daring  and  deathless  de- 
votion to  the  will  of  God. 


II 

FEIEM)SHIP'S  SEVEN  SOVEREIGN  ELE- 
MENTS 


1 


■^IIE  friendship  of  Jesus  is  a  vast,  interior, 
elemental  fact  of  life.  It  is  universal, 
therefore  sovereign.  Stars  can  sooner 
evade  the  law  of  gravitation  than  the  human  con- 
science escape  the  moral  authority  of  the  Christ, 
He  is  both  our  conscience  and  our  Lord,  In  His 
will  is  perfect  friendship.  "  Ye  are  My  friends  if 
ye  do  the  things  which  I  command  you."  Jesus  is 
the  world's  greatest  lover.  His  proffered  friend- 
ship is  as  the  royal  wooing  of  the  spring-tide.  It 
lies  like  an  uncreated  light  over  all  the  heart  of 
man.  Persistent  rejection  of  Jesus  shifts  the  axis 
of  our  being  and  brings  on  the  long  night-time  of 
the  soul. 

Friendship  has  seven  sovereign  elements;  they 
are  Truth,  Purity,  S3rrapathy,  Personality,  Spirit- 
uality, Self-giving  and  Immortality.  Of  these  the 
first  is  fundamental  to  all  others.  Truth  unifies, 
error  disintegrates  ;  truth  constructs,  falsehood  un- 
dermines ;  truth  liberates,  sin  enslaves.  Truth  is 
eternal ;  when  the  foundations  of  the  earth  shall  be 
shaken  and  shall  crumble  away,  Christ  will  abide, 
for  Christ  is  the  Truth.     The  basis  of  friendship 

24 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    25 

with  Jesus  is  spiritual  affinity  for  Truth.  "  Faith 
is  not  the  action  of  a  separate  and  distinct  faculty. 
It  is  the  fusion  of  the  whole  mind  in  one  supreme 
seizure  of  truth.  .  .  .  Faith  finds  truth  by 
spkitual  affinity."  Here  is  perfect  freedom.  Jesus 
remands  no  felon  to  his  cell,  and  puts  no  fetters 
upon  the  soul,  but  vanquishes  all  enemies  by  draw- 
ing them  up  into  His  own  great  and  mysterious  self. 
Christ  is  truth  incarnate ;  the  spirit  of  Kberty  per- 
sonalized. In  the  truth  of  Jesus,  art,  literature, 
music,  science,  and  philosophy  were  reborn.  His 
presence  pervades  all  education  and  wells  up 
through  all  culture  until  the  whole  takes  on  a  deep 
religious  hue.  It  is  not  that  "  dim  religious  light  " 
that  filters  out  upon  a  faltering  world  through  thick 
cathedral  walls,  but  such  a  light  as  breaks  o'er  hill 
and  dale  when  morning  wakes  and  one  by  one  the 
shadows  flee  untU  truth  lies  like  a  glorious  sunlight 
upon  the  minds  of  men. 

There  can  be  no  friendship  without  the  exchange 
of  noble  thoughts.  Great  thoughts  are  universal : 
— clothe  them  in  a  dress  of  simple  beauty  and  you 
speak  to  millions  yet  unborn.  You  may  adorn  a 
lesser  local  truth  in  royal  robes  and  strut  and 
sputter  ever  so  grandly,  still  your  words  will  die 
with  you.  The  thoughts  of  Jesus  are  immortal. 
He  refused  to  dishonor  reason  by  tearing  every 
truth  to  tatters.  He  spoke  the  whole  heart  of  col- 
lective man  in  a  way,  simple,  sublime  and  enduring. 
The  truths  of  Jesus  will  nurture  the  noblest  na- 
tures.    As  branches  bend  beneath  the  weiirht  of 


26  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

ripening  fruit,  so  bends  the  language  of  our  Lord 
beneath  the  golden  apples  of  His  thought : — re- 
reading, like  the  process  of  ripening,  not  only  adds 
to  their  weight,  but  also  to  their  lusciousness. 
Many  of  them  bend  so  near  the  ground  that  little 
children  can  reach  them  and  go  away  glad  in  their 
new-found  joy.  Think  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  in  the 
blossom  time  of  life  and  "  all  along  the  trail  of  the 
friendly  years  the  heart  of  happiness  will  fruit  out 
into  the  higher  friendship." 

Bacon  has  said  that  "  no  receipt  openeth  the 
heart  but  a  true  friend,  to  whom  we  may  impart 
griefs,  joys,  fears,  hopes,  suspicions,  counsels  and 
whatsoever  lieth  upon  the  heart  to  oppress  it,  in  a 
kind  of  civil  shrift  or  confession."  The  world 
would  not  so  uncover  its  heart  to  Jesus  did  it  not 
believe  Him  to  be  absolutely  true  and  somehow 
possessed  of  the  truth  of  God.  Moreover  we  need 
a  friend  who  will  be  sincere  with  us,  lay  bare  our 
faults,  and  show  us  our  finer  seK.  Alone  we  are 
sincere  ;  together  we  dissimulate.  "  Let  love  be 
without  dissimulation.  Abhor  that  which  is  evil . 
cleave  to  that  which  is  good."  Abhor,  cleave, 
these  two  ;  they  are  the  outbreathing  and  the  in- 
breathing of  the  soul.  Criticism  is  wanton  cruelty 
when  undiscerning  and  unjust ;  from  such,  every 
sensitive  soul  must  recoil  or  be  crucified.  "When 
truthful  and  sympathetic,  above  all  possessmg 
spiritual  insight,  criticism  is  as  the  touch  of  the 
potter  on  the  clay ;  we  must  respond  to  it  or  re- 
main forever  ill-formed.     Truth  is  as  a  mirror  in 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    27 

Tvhich  Tve  behold  the  image  of  our  ideal.  We 
are  made  by  faithful  friends.  Blessed  is  the  man 
who  has  many  such :  yet  with  no  veil  upon  his 
face. 

Purity,  as  a  sovereign  element  of  friendship,  is 
self-evident.  A  friendship  without  purity  is  like  a 
muddy  spring;  there  is  no  reflection  of  heaven 
upon  its  bosom  and  no  refreshment  in  its  substance. 
Trust  and  impurity  are  mutually  exclusive.  A 
friend  is  one  whom  we  can  trust  utterly.  One 
breath  of  impurity  will  taint  a  friendship  for  a  life- 
time ;  it  beclouds  and  besmirches  all  it  touches. 
Purity  of  motive  is  to  all  our  virtues  what  trans- 
parency is  to  a  window ;  without  it  there  can  be 
neither  light  nor  vision.  As  merchants  sell  their 
all  and  seek  the  pearl  of  greatest  price  so  seeks  the 
soul  for  Thee,  Thou  pearl  of  imperishable  pui'ity. 
When  most  our  heart  is  stained  with  sin,  it  seeks 
Thee  most ;  when  most  unknown  it  seeks  Thee  still. 
Oh,  Thou  pm-e,  pure  Christ !  we  dare  not  hope  to 
possess  Thee,  but  Thou  wilt  possess  us  and  through 
Thee  we  shall  see  God.  Truth  is  a  pearl,  purity  is 
a  pearl,  friendship  is  a  string  of  pearls.  This  is  the 
yoke  that  our  gi^eat  Bridegroom  would  fain  fasten 
upon  the  neck  of  His  fair  Bride. 

A  friendship-love  possessing  only  truth  and 
purity  is  as  an  exquisitely  chiselled  statue  of  trans- 
parent marble  ;  add  the  element  of  sympathy,  and 
lo,  it  comes  to  life  !  A  man  of  austerity  chills  us 
to  the  marrow ;  a  man  of  sympathy  warms  our 
very     bones.     Sjrmpathy    is    an    inclusive    word. 


28  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Tenderness  is  the  sensitive  nerve  of  sympathy ; 
affection  is  its  pulse.  Compassion  is  sympathy 
embracing  a  shepherdless  world.  Within  it  all, 
imbedded  like  a  jewel,  lies  mercy,  that  kingly 
quality  of  love.  A  friendship  glowing  with  sym- 
pathy is  as  a  "fine  ruby  smitten  by  the  sun." 
With  what  tender  and  forgi\ang  sympathy  Jesus 
bends  to  our  weakness  and  touches  the  human 
heart  all  sore  with  sin.  It  is  precious  beyond 
words  to  know  that  the  strong  and  sinless  Son  of 
God  has  been  touched  with  a  feeling  for  our  in- 
firmities. No  less  than  truth,  sympathy  is  the 
basic  element  in  that  spiritual  affinity  which  makes 
faith  possible.  "  Faith  is  sympathy ;  it  springs 
from  responsiveness  to  the  holy  and  divine ;  unbe- 
lief is  apathy ;  it  results  in  the  atrophy  of  the  ca- 
pacity to  respond."  Truth,  Purity,  Sympathy ; 
these  are  the  priestly  elements  of  the  soul.  Possess 
these  and  you  become  a  part  of  that  royal  priest- 
hood of  believers  in  Jesus,  who  minister  daily  at 
the  shrine  of  the  world's  greatest  need. 

Friendship  is  neither  an  abstraction  nor  merely  a 
thing  of  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  both  personal  and 
spiritual,  A  person  is  more  than  an  individual ;  he 
is  an  individual  plus  a  divine  inbreathing.  The 
personal  element  belongs  rather  to  the  inbreathing 
than  to  the  fleshly  part  of  our  nature  and  is  there- 
fore spiritual.  Some  call  it  "soul,"  others  call  it 
"personality."  The  mind  of  man  is  so  made  that 
it  is  possible  for  only  a  few  to  grasp  the  deep  mean- 
ing of  the  Incarnation  until  they  behold  God  in  the 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    29 

face  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  necessary  for  most  of  us 
to  keep  close  to  the  objective  aspects  of  His  life  in 
order  to  feel  the  nearness  of  God  with  redeeming 
power.  Most  of  our  friendships  have  their  incep- 
tion in  some  physical  proximity,  but  it  is  not  until 
they  pass  into  the  purely  spiritual  that  they  attain 
their  true  dignity  and  worth.  Nowhere  is  this  more 
true  than  in  the  marriage  relationship.  Those  who 
have  had  the  blessed  experience  of  a  long  engage- 
ment with  much  separation  will  recall  how  love, 
compelled  to  grow  by  correspondence,  ripened 
quickly  and  insensibly  from  a  hot  passion  into  a 
beautiful  spiritual  friendship.  Then  comes  the  mar- 
riage day  followed  by  more  or  less  of  a  disillusion- 
ment. What  is  the  difficulty?  The  cynic  says 
that  love  is  a  false  fancy  and  marriage  a  mirage. 
The  sensualist  says  that  the  soul  has  not  found  its 
true  affinity,  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  it  has  sold  its  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 
This  is  the  real  difficulty :  the  two  souls  thought  that 
when  they  possessed  each  other  in  the  flesh,  their 
union  would  be  complete,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  found  that  the  physical  presence  was  a  subtle 
intrusion  which  actually  prevented  the  realization 
of  their  beautiful  spiritual  ideal.  That  which  was 
purely  fleshly  had  to  be  slowly  refined  away  before 
the  earlier  ideal  could  shine  forth  in  its  more 
mature  beauty.  This  often  requires  a  long  struggle 
mingled  with  much  of  heartache  and  disappoint- 
ment and  calling  daily  for  mutual  self-giving.  My 
friend  demands  my  all,  else  he  is  not  all  my  friend. 


30  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

There  are  three  things  about  the  married  life  that 
are  incomparably  beautiful :  it  affords  the  best  pos- 
sible opportunity  for  two  lives  to  be  supremely  un- 
selfish, to  love  little  children,  and  to  grow  spirit- 
ually mellow  together. 

Emerson  touched  the  universal  conscience  at  its 
quick  when  he  said :  "  We  are  afraid  of  making  our 
ties  too  spiritual,  as  if  so  we  should  lose  any 
genuine  love."  "We  are  still  childlike  and  prefer  a 
stick  of  candy  to-day  rather  than  a  diamond  ring  a 
year  hence.  Let  us  be  ashamed  to  "  suck  a  sudden 
sweetness  "  rather  than  await  the  luscious  ripeness 
of  the  early  and  the  latter  rain.  Let  your  desires 
be  tempered  by  your  ideals  and  necessities  rather 
than  by  your  fleshly  lusts.  Live  deeply  and  patiently 
and  you  will  grow  sublimely  and  sweetly  ;  as  thy 
roots  so  shall  thy  stature  be. 

Friendship  depends  upon  exchange  of  soul,  but 
never  upon  mere  fleshly  presence.  The  friendship 
between  Jesus  and  the  beloved  disciple  John  was 
far  more  spiritual  and  real  in  the  evening  twilight 
of  Ephesus  and  Patmos  than  it  was  that  sacred 
night  when  John  leaned  upon  his  Master's  breast. 
It  is  both  personal  and  spiritual.  The  quickening 
power  of  the  moral  precepts  of  Jesus  convince  us 
that  they  are  none  other  than  subtle  irradiations  of 
His  pure  and  stainless  person.  They  force  us  to 
reflect  upon  the  mystery  of  His  Jbeing  and  the 
uniqueness  of  His  presence  in  our  daily  lives.  The 
impact  of  the  life  of  Jesus  upon  the  soul  of  the  race 
is  "  as  a  beam  of  light  from  the  skies — pure  light, 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    31 

shiniag  directly  into  the  visual  orb  of  the  mind,  a 
light  for  all  that  live,  a  full  transparent  day,  in 
which  truth  bathes  the  spuit  as  an  element."  In  a 
far  deeper  sense  than  even  the  great  Bushnell  in- 
tended, "  His  is  not  so  much  a  doctrine  as  a 
biography,  a  personal  power,  a  truth  all  motivity,  a 
love  walking  the  earth  in  the  proximity  of  a  mortal 
fellowship." 

Self-giving  is  the  open  doorway  into  the  higher 
friendship.  He  that  entereth  not  by  this  door,  the 
same  is  a  thief  and  a  robber.  "  Friendship  is  love 
apart  from  love's  claim  or  love's  craving."  Here  is 
where  the  shadow  falls  aslant  the  doorway.  "  This 
is  pure  friendship,  without  alloy."  The  spu'it  of 
self -giving  is  love  to  the  uttermost ;  it  kindles  our 
hearts  towards  the  souls  of  men  until  we  glow  with 
the  eloquence  and  the  magnetism  of  the  divine  en- 
thusiasm. 


* '  Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 
Shivers  through  me  like  a  trumpet  call, 
Oh,  to  save  these,  to  perish  for  their  saving, 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all." 


"  This  is  My  commandment,  that  ye  love  one  an- 
other, even  as  I  have  loved  you.  Greater  love  hath 
no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for 
his  friends.  Ye  are  My  friends,  if  ye  do  the  things 
which  I  command  you."  Would  you  have  the 
meaning  of  self -giving  in  a  single  word  ?  Calvary. 
Here  we  bow  low  and  worship. 


32  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

The  sun  reveals  its  true  piu^pose  in  the  breath  of 
an  obscure  violet  as  well  as  in  the  harmonious  mov- 
ing of  many  worlds.  A  hundred  childi'en  of  the 
slums  were  returning  from  a  visit  to  the  coimtry. 
Little  Rosie,  wearing  a  pair  of  very  old  and  very 
large  shoes,  was  the  object  of  a  chorus  of  gibes. 
The  attendant  remerpbered  that  Eosie  had  had  a 
pair  of  new  shoes,  knd  she  asked  what  had  become 
of  them.  "  Well,"  said  Kosie,  "  you  see,  these  shoes 
ain't  mine.  They're  Katie's.  I  know  they're  awful 
big,  but  her  mother  ain't  had  any  work  lately,  so 
she  couldn't  buy  her  a  new  pair.  She  just  gave 
her  own  shoes  to  Katie.  Katie  felt  awful  bad 
about  it,  and  cried  all  the  way  to  the  station.  The 
girls  all  laughed  at  her.  So  I  just  lent  her  my  new 
ones  and  took  hers.  You  see,  teacher,"  said  Rosie, 
raising  her  eyes  to  the  attendant's  face,  "  Katie's 
my  friend."  The  odor  of  Gethsemane  and  the 
gleam  of  Calvary  are  in  that  little  heart.  Only  a 
child  of  the  poor  can  squeeze  friendship's  attar  of 
roses  from  a  pair  of  old  shoes.  It  has  been  well 
said  that  the  best  rose-bush  is  not  the  one  that  has 
the  fewest  thorns,  but  the  one  that  bears  the  linest 
roses.  So,  also,  we  may  say,  the  best  life  is  not  the 
one  that  has  the  fewest  enemies,  but  the  one  that 
bears  the  finest  friendships.  I  believe  in  the 
stricter  economy  and  discipline  of  organized  chari- 
ties ;  still  the  Church  needs  those  who,  like  Mary, 
will  break  their  alabaster  box  and  lavish  their  all 
upon  their  Saviour  until  the  odor  fills  the  house. 
Spontaneity  is  to  charity  what  perfume  is  to  the 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    33 

rose.  Blessed  is  the  man  who  lavishes  love  upon 
the  unlovely  and  who  rejoices  to  walk  a  sunny  mile 
along  the  weary  way  of  the  unworthy. 

We  now  come  to  our  last  sovereign  element  of 
friendship — hnmortality.  Friendship  is  fickle,  says 
the  cynic.  It  does  not  bear  testing.  Cynicism  is 
no  guarantee  for  spiritual  knowledge.  The  friend- 
ship of  Jesus  abides.  The  cynic  may  deny  it ;  the 
sinner  may  slight  it ;  the  traitor  may  betray  it ; 
still  the  heart  of  Jesus  is  ever  open  towards  a 
wounded  world.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  aspects 
of  our  Lord's  life  upon  earth  was  His  devoted 
friendship  for  the  two  sisters,  Mary  and  Martha, 
and  their  brother  Lazarus.  We  read  in  John  the 
eleventh  chapter  that  when  Lazarus  was  sick  unto 
death  Jesus  went  to  the  house  of  sorrow  at  the  risk 
of  His  life.  Think  of  that  night  in  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane  when  Judas,  with  the  perfidy  of  his 
sin  hot  on  his  traitorous  lips,  betrayed  his  Master 
with  a  kiss.  Listen  to  the  reply  of  our  Lord: — 
"  Friend,  what  thou  doest  do  quickly."  I^Tot  cursed 
traitor,  not  despicable  weakling,  not  even  Judas, 
but  "  friend."  It  was  a  voice  speaking  from  out  the 
heart  of  God's  unchanging  love.  The  friendship  of 
Jesus  is  an  abiding  friendship.  "  Once  a  friend 
always  a  friend.  To  have  loved  once  was  never  to 
have  loved  at  all."  It  is  just  this  changeless  char- 
acter of  true  friendship  that  makes  its  betrayal  the 
most  damning  accusation  that  can  be  brought 
against  any  man.  He  who  kills  a  noble  friendship 
"  slays  an  immortality  rather  than  a  life." 


34  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

It  is  in  the  new-formed  friendship  of  Jesus  for 
Saul  of  Tarsus  that  we  touch  the  core  of  the  miracle 
of  the  divine  friendship.  That  the  vision  which 
flooded  the  soul  of  this  murderously  fanatical,  yet 
brilliantly  intellectual,  man  was  nothing  more  or 
less  than  the  superimposed  impact  of  the  spiritual 
Jesus,  no  one  can  seriously  doubt.  That  Paul  in- 
stantly and  continuously  associated  Him  with  the 
same  great  personality  who  had  walked  the  earth 
and  had  been  crucified,  is  beyond  question.  It  was 
no  mere  dream.  Psychology,  history,  and  religious 
experience  affirm  it  as  a  magnificent  reality.  The 
personality  of  Jesus  has  survived  the  crisis  of  death 
and  from  His  place  amidst  the  changeless  and  the 
timeless  spheres  is  now  moving  upon  the  hearts  of 
men  with  a  soul-ravishing  friendship. 

Emerson  says,  "  Friendship  like  immortality  is 
too  good  to  be  true."  Friendship  with  Jesus  is  im- 
mortality. The  deeply  personal  nature  of  His 
friendship,  transcending  all  earthly  conditions  and 
limitations,  is  still  the  most  central  and  convincing 
fact  in  Christian  consciousness.  That  such  a  per- 
sonal relation  will  abide  beyond  the  experience  of 
physical  dissolution  cannot  be  seriously  questioned 
by  any  reasoning  soul.  If  our  earthly  friendships 
are  allowed  to  spring  forth  from  and  take  root  in 
His  larger  friendship,  then  they  too  will  abide. 
This  is  heaven  both  now  and  hereafter.  This  is 
joy  and  comfort  unspeakable. 

These  then  are  the  seven  sovereign  elements  in 
friendship :  Truth,  Purity,  Sympathy,  Personality, 


Friendship's  Seven  Sovereign  Elements    35 

Spirituality,  Self-giving  and  Immortality.  There 
may  be  many  other  elements,  but  these  are  vital. 
Jesus  alone  has  possessed  them  in  their  perfection 
and  that  is  why  He  is  the  most  precious  of  friends. 
Human  friendships,  however  dear  and  ennobling, 
are  apt  to  be  exclusive.  They  are  often  marred  by 
some  flaw.  It  is  only  by  the  slow  growth  of  years 
that  we  approximate  the  perfect. 

"But  Thee,  but  Thee,  O  Sovereign  Seer  of  Time, 
But  Thee,  O  poet's  Poet,  wisdom's  Tongue, 
But  Thee,  O  man's  best  Man,  O  love's  best  Love, 
O  perfect  Life  in  perfect  labour  writ, 
O  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King,  or  Priest,— 
What  if  or  yet,  what  mole,  what  flaw,  what  lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect. 
What  rumor,  tattled  by  an  enemy. 
Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace, 
Even  in  torture's  grasp,  or  sleep's,  or  death's, — 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  Thee, 
Jesus,  good  Paragon,  Thou  Crystal  Christ?" 


Ill 

ITS  MEANING  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND 
FOR  SOCIETY 

LOVE  is  the  most  personal,  hence  the  most 
real,  fact  of  life.  It  is  this  inner  depth  of 
feeling  that  forms  the  core  of  our  person- 
ality. Love  responds  only  to  a  personal  presence, 
never  to  an  abstraction.  A  loveless  soul  is  an  im- 
personal soul.  So  also  an  unloving  and  unlovable 
God  is  an  impersonal  God.  It  is  in  this  region  of 
our  soul  that  the  religious  impulse  takes  its  rise. 
It  is  the  personal  in  God  speaking  to  the  personal 
in  man.  Religion  begins  in  the  mutually  respon- 
sive love  between  one  person  and  the  Supreme 
Personality.  It  is  the  longing  for  a  friend  that 
can  fully  satisfy.  Personality  is  also  will.  "  His 
personal  will  is  expressed  in  our  moral  constitu- 
tion." The  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  the  fear  of 
the  divine  disfavor,  the  concept  of  duty  and  obedi- 
ence ;  these  as  well  as  affection  are  elements  in  the 
friendship  between  God  and  man.  Love  and  will 
are  quite  as  essential  as  reason  to  our  religious  life. 
Reason  without  love  is  apt  to  be  unresponsive  and 
even  irreligious.  Love  without  reason  is  apt  to  be 
superficial  and  capricious.     Reason  and  love  with- 

36 


Its  Meaning  for  Individual  and  for  Society   37 

out  will  are  impotent  and  purposeless.  Keligion 
is  the  whole  man  knowingly  and  lovingly  doing 
the  will  of  God.  The  friendship  of  Jesus  is  the 
personality  of  the  Christ  coming  into  consciousness, 
not  only  in  the  life  of  each  man  but  of  the  race. 
Every  one  loves  somebody  or  something ;  all  our 
life  is  made  up  of  choices ;  we  cannot  live  ration- 
ally and  ideally  without  reactmg  properly  to  the 
fact  in  our  lives,  of  God  and  of  our  fellow  men. 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind.  This  is  the  great  and  first  commandment. 
And  a  second  like  unto  it  is  this  :  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  The  result  is  a  new 
sense  of  the  worth  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
true  meaning  and  purpose  of  society. 

Jesus  discovers  both  a  depth  and  a  dignity  in  the 
human  soul  that  makes  friendship  with  Him  pos- 
sible. This  truth  should  vitalize  the  evangelistic 
note  in  our  modern  preaching.  The  chief  business 
of  the  minister  is  still  to  open  the  eyes  that  are 
blind  and  not  to  blind  the  eyes  that  are  open. 
Looking  into  the  sinless  character  of  Jesus,  we  find 
a  revelation  of  the  "  altogether  unsuspected  depth 
and  inexhaustibleness  of  human  Personality  and  of 
this  Personality's  analogue  in  God."  True  friend- 
ship involves  the  entire  man  and  enters  into  all  the 
relations  of  life.  We  cannot  be  a  true  friend  to 
anybody  without  becoming  a  real  part  of  all  that 
they  are.  The  thought  that  God  offers  us  such  a 
friendship  staggers  us.    Nowhere,  outside  the  Sacred 


38  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Scriptures,  has  it  ever  found  hopeful  expression. 
Pagan  thought  and  religion  had  reached  a  stage 
where  they  were  without  hope.  Philosophy  with- 
out a  great  hope  would  be  lil^e  a  circle  without  a 
centre.  It  is  inconceivable.  "  Religion  without  a 
great  hope  would  be  like  an  altar  without  a  fire." 
It  is  the  very  negation  of  religion.  In  the  words 
of  Matthew  Ai'nold : 

'*  On  that  hard  pagan  world,  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell, 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell." 


In  Jesus  we  find  God  entering  perfectly  into  all 
the  humblest  relationships  of  a  Galilean  peasant. 
Childhood,  the  humblest  home  life,  manual  labor, 
honest  poverty,  the  simplest  earthly  friendships, 
common  joys  and  sorrows,  inarticulate  hungers, 
deep  subconscious  strivings,  "all  the  universal, 
elemental  faculties  and  relationships  of  man  as 
man  are  entered  into  and  developed,  are  all  hal- 
lowed in  the  smallest  detail."  But  more  than 
this,  we  behold  Jesus  sharing  this  perfect  friend- 
ship, this  lovely  and  holy  relation  to  God,  with 
our  own  unlovely  selves.  We  see  this  and  are 
no  longer  wistful  but  gladsome.  And  weU  we 
might  be  glad,  my  brother,  for  to  be  fully  conscious 
of  this  wonderful  friendship  of  Jesus  for  the  lowly 
and  unlovely  of  earth  is  to  sense  an  inner  dignity 
capable    of  sustaining  such  a   friendship.      Thus 


Its  Meaning  for  Individual  and  for  Society   39 

Jesus  reveals  Himself  to  men  by  revealing  men  to 
themselves.  As  He  passed  by,  men  fell  to  the 
ground  smitten  with  a  sense  of  their  own  unloveli- 
ness  and  arose  to  find  the  Christ  mirrored  in  the 
heretofore  undiscovered  depths  of  their  own  souls. 
He  uncovers  sin,  sets  up  ideals,  liberates  potential 
possibilities,  shifts  the  centre  of  being,  doubles 
the  powers  of  creative  imitation,  increases  beyond 
measure  the  capacity  to  assimilate  spiritual  truth 
and  in  an  mcredibly  short  time  makes  over  the 
entire  personality  into  a  new  creatui'e.  This  is 
both  the  mystery  and  the  possibility  of  the  divine 
friendship — Christ  in  you  the  hope  of  glory. 

The  second  result  from  this  deeply  personal  fac- 
tor in  the  friendship  of  Jesus  is  a  growing  sense 
of  the  organic  nature  of  society  "  Christ  is  not 
one  Person.  He  is  to  those  who  know  Him,  Col- 
lective Man,  who  is  lived  in  the  love  of  Him." 
Modern  science  tells  us  that  all  living  forms  develop 
in  accordance  with  a  hidden  purpose.  This  is  not 
only  true  of  men  but  of  that  grouping  of  men 
which  we  call  society.  We  are  dimly  but  no  less 
certainly  sure  that  we  are  mox-ing  irresistibly 
towards  a  hidden  goal.  With  many  this  goal  re- 
mains undefined.  They  are  forced  to  let  society  be 
sucked  forward  by  the  future's  vast  vacuity.  AVith 
Jesus  it  is  the  kingdom  of  God  set  up  on  earth. 
But  it  was  a  kingdom  that  should  be  set  up  in 
the  hearts  of  men  and  its  basis  was  a  personal 
friendship  with  Him.  The  friendship  of  Jesus  is 
both  the  ideal  and  the  dynamic  of  the  new  hu- 


42  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

sunny  slopes  and  in  rich  soil  that  the  world  may 
rejoice  in  their  perfect  bloom. 

With  shame  we  read  these  words  by  Jane  Addams, 
"  With  all  of  the  efforts  made  by  modern  society 
to  nurtm-e  and  educate  the  young,  how  stupid  it  is 
to  permit  the  mothers  of  young  childi-en  to  spend 
themselves  in  the  coarser  work  of  the  world !  It  is 
curiously  inconsistent  with  the  emphasis  which  this 
generation  has  placed  upon  the  prolongation  of  in- 
fancy that  we  constantly  allow  the  waste  of  this 
most  precious  material.  I  cannot  recall  without 
indignation  a  recent  experience.  I  was  detained 
late  one  evening  in  an  office  building  by  a  pro- 
longed committee  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion. As  I  came  out  at  eleven  o'clock  I  met  in  the 
corridor  of  the  fourteenth  floor  a  woman  whom  I 
knew  on  her  knees  scrubbing  the  marble  tiling. 
As  she  straightened  up  to  greet  me,  she  seemed  so 
wet  from  her  feet  to  her  chin  that  I  hastily  in- 
quired the  cause.  Her  reply  was  that  she  left 
home  at  five  o'clock  every  night  and  had  no  oppor- 
tunity for  six  hours  to  nurse  her  baby.  Her  moth- 
er's milk  mingled  with  the  very  water  with  which 
she  scrubbed  the  floors  until  she  should  return  at 
midnight,  heated  and  exhausted,  to  feed  her  scream- 
ing child  with  what  remained  within  her  breasts." 
Here  is  the  Gethsemane  of  motherhood  and  the 
Calvary  of  childhood.  Every  great  civilization  has 
been  judged  according  to  its  attitude  towards 
motherhood  and  childhood.  Unless  we  learn  the 
lesson  of  the  past  Ave  are  doomed.     He  who  fights 


Its  Meaning  for  Individual  and  for  Society   43 

the  battle  of  little  cliilcli-en  is  not  very  far  from  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

How  miserably  slow  we  are  to  appreciate  the  ex- 
quisite friendship  of  Jesus  for  little  children !     It  is 
one  of   the   most  precious  memories   of   His  life 
here  upon  earth.     Even  less  have  we  been  able  to 
penetrate  to  that  interior  and  fundamental  place 
which  He  gave  them  in  His  kingdom.     We  are  so 
conventionalized,  so  blase,  so  sophisticated,  so  sin- 
stained,  so  morally  Avarped  by  selfish  motives  that 
we  cannot  comprehend.     Only  a  childlike  heart  can 
feel  a  rapturous  thrill  and  trust  the  Saviour  utterly. 
That  childhood  which  has  never  known  the  friend- 
ship of  Jesus  is  a  rosebud  unkissed  by  the  sun.    It 
has  withered  at  its  young  heart  and  will  never 
know  a  perfect  bloom.     It  has  all  but  died  before 
it  began  to  live.     The  spu-itual  whole  lies  poten- 
tially°in  any  one  of  its  parts.     The  kingdom  of 
heaven  lies  wrapped  up  in  every  little  heart.    This  is 
its  divine  bu-thi-ight ;  to  sell  it  for  a  mess  of  pottage 
is  a  tragedy,  to  crush  it  is  a  crime.     First  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  then  the  full  grain  in  the  ear  :  this  is 
the  natural   order   of    development  and  its  vital 
principle  is  friendship  Avith  Jesus.     The  inner  crea- 
tive impulse  of  His  indwelling  should  be  allowed  to 
express  itself  in  a  free  and  sane  self -activity  called 
forth    by   contact   with  a    healthy    en\ironment. 
There  are  four  aspects  of  the  environment  in  which 
this  development  takes  place:  the  home  with  its 
larger  social  life  and  play  activities,  the  school,  the 
church,  and  society  (industrial  and  political).     Thus 


44  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Christ  has  sanctified  the  function  of  the  parent,  the 
teacher,  the  employer,  and  the  legislator  as  well  as 
that  of  the  priest  and  the  preacher.  This  is  the 
Christian's  educational  creed.  Herein  lies  the  con- 
trol of  all  those  forces  which  must  be  utilized  in  the 
bringing  in  of  the  kingdom. 

Friendship-love  is  the  all-inclusive  principle  of 
religion.  Kighteousness  and  justice  are  but  its  ap- 
plication to  human  relations.  These  are  the  true 
incense  of  devotion,  and  unless  they  rise  from  the 
altar  our  worship  is  in  vain.  "Take  thou  away 
from  me  the  noise  of  thy  songs ;  for  I  will  not  hear 
the  melody  of  thy  viols.  But  let  justice  roll  down 
as  waters,  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty  stream." 
Prophecy  is  the  often  unwelcome  obtrusion  of 
divine  truth  upon  the  collective  conscience  of  man. 
Hear  ye  the  prophets.  Self-righteousness  is  un- 
righteousness on  dress  parade  :  it  is  self-seeking  in 
disguise.  Injustice  is  the  prostitution  of  economics, 
the  wanton  oppression  of  the  weak  and  the  poor  in 
the  fair  name  of  commerce.  They  are  mangy 
things  with  cruel  and  uncanny  arms  entwined — 
twin  brothers  of  an  underworld.  In  the  name  of  a 
righteous  God  above  us  and  a  Saviour  who  died  for 
sheer  love  of  us  all,  why  should  they  be  allowed  to 
herd  like  swine  and  feed  upon  the  lovelit  hills  of 
Christendom  ?  Let  us  drive  them,  foaming  mouthed, 
into  the  sea. 

One  of  the  chief  functions  of  the  prophet  is  to 
disturb  the  social  order,  without  which  spiritual 
progress  is  impossible.     He  seeks  to  turn  society 


Its  Meaning  for  Individual  and  for  Society   45 

from  self-satisfaction  in  static  forms  to  the  inward 
developing  principle  of  history ;  which  principle  he 
conceives  to  be  definitely  religious.  What  then  is 
the  meaning  to  future  history  of  this  twofold  rela- 
tion of  Jesus  to  the  individual  and  to  society  ?  The 
single  idea  of  the  essential  worth  of  the  soul  and  its 
justification  before  God  by  faith  alone,  its  power  to 
share  the  divine  friendship  unhindered  and  unaided 
by  ecclesiastical  dogma ;  this  single  idea  contains 
the  germs  of  even  greater  social  and  political  revo- 
lutions and  finer  types  of  spirituality  than  the 
world  has  yet  seen.  When  w^e  add  to  this  the  idea 
of  the  kingdom,  the  thrilling  idea  that  somehow 
society  as  one  vast  brotherhood  in  fellowship  with 
Jesus  can  rise  into  some  likeness  to  His  character, 
we  are  overwhelmed  at  the  vision  which  opens  be- 
fore us.  Indeed  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
democracy  of  the  future  will  be  the  long-looked-for 
theocracy  wherein  religion,  commerce,  and  freedom 
shall  be  mingled  in  one  inseparable  and  holy  union. 
Oh,  winged  days  be  swift  to  fly  and  bring  the  Lord 
Christ  hence,  for  He  comes,  He  comes  !  And  when 
He  shall  appear  in  the  glory  of  His  Father  with  the 
holy  angels,  then  shall  the  mountains  shake  with 
the  dread  grandeur  of  His  stepping.  Then,  what 
judgments  shall  be  His,  what  love,  what  peace  shall 
reign !  No  more  shall  justice  slip  blindfolded  in 
the  ditch,  or  righteousness  be  beaten  in  the  fight. 
No  more  shall  toiling  children  of  the  poor  be  caged 
in  kennels  of  the  godless  rich  and  burned  or 
sweated  on  the  altar  of  a  needless  sacrifice.     No 


46  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

more  shall  greed  and  hate  like  shuttles  shoot  the 
cords  of  life,  deep  dyed  in  many  a  brother's  blood, 
to  "  weave  the  crimson  web  of  war." 

*'But  oh  !  what  solemn  scenes  on  Snowden's  height, 
Descending  slow  their  glittering  skirts  unroll  ? 
Visions  of  glory,  spare  my  aching  sight ! 
Ye  unborn  ages,  crowd  not  on  my  soul ! " 


IV 
ITS  DIVINE  FOEESHADOWmO 

GKEAT  friendships  are  like  great  rivers: 
there  are  few  of  them,  but  they  noui'ish 
civilization  and  flow  towards  the  sea. 
They  are  made  up  of  a  thousand  lesser  streams  and 
in  their  sweeping  currents  we  behold  the  mingled 
loves  and  aspirations  of  the  multitudes.  That  na- 
tion is  poor  indeed  that  has  not  produced  at  least 
one  great  friend  of  humanity.  One  can  almost  say 
that  it  has  lived  in  vain.  Friendship  is  essentially 
religious.  We  have  all  felt  its  tendency  to  rever- 
ence and  worship.  He  who  enters  into  its  inner 
sanctuary  will  ever  after  find  it  easier  to  believe  and 
trust  the  heavenly  Father.  Communion  with  God 
through  Christ  is  the  essence  of  the  higher  friend- 
ship. Faith  is  its  inward  grasp,  love  its  outward 
expression  ;  reason  and  righteousness  are  the  very 
form  and  image  which  it  takes.  Friendship  is  both 
creative  and  reproductive,  therefore  redemptive. 
It  was  not  absent  when  the  Spirit  brooded  over 
worlds  as  yet  unformed,  nor  did  it  languish  when 
nature  mated  with  its  Maker  and  all  created  life 
brought  forth  its  kind.  ISTeither  was  it  far  afield 
on  that  fair  day  when  bright-browed  reason  was 
inbreathed.     It  was  a  day  of  promise  when  the 

47 


48  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

parental  impulse  broke  over  hill  and  jungle  and 
love  hissed  its  first  faint  hallelujahs  from  the  holes 
and  caves  of  earth,  then  sang  them  from  the  tree 
tops  and  the  altars.  It  speaks  alike  to  the  reason 
and  to  the  conscience  iis  well  as  to  the  hopes  and 
the  hungers  of  man.  It  enters  into  every  daily 
round  of  life.  Under  its  subtle  touch,  fear  is  trans- 
formed into  reverence,  might  into  morality,  pride 
into  dependence,  and  all  the  lurking  powers  of  sea 
and  sky  and  land  converge  into  one  supreme  per- 
sonality whose  glory  fills  the  earth.  Selfishness 
and  greed,  cruelty  and  corruption,  pain  and  sacri- 
fice, still  mingle  with  the  grim  and  sinister  struggle 
for  existence ;  but  God  is  kind  and  the  vision  of 
the  prophet  is  yet  a  beautiful  possibility.  "  And 
the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard 
shall  lie  down  with  the  kid ;  and  the  calf  and  the 
young  lion  and  the  fatling  together ;  and  a  little 
child  shall  lead  them.  They  shall  not  hurt  nor  des- 
troy in  all  My  holy  mountain ;  for  the  earth  shall 
be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah,  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea."  It  is  not  alone  his  animal  propen- 
sities, and  the  form  of  his  bones  and  the  structure  of 
his  nerves  that  makes  man  a  brother  to  the  brute. 
Neither  is  it  mentality  made  keenest  in  the  strife 
that  alone  separates  him  fathoms  wide.  By  one  and 
the  selfsame  thing  they  are  both  bound  together 
and  sundered  far ;  it  is  their  capacity  for  friendship. 
The  divine  friendship  is  the  only  certain  force 
in  the  upward  progress  of  life.  "When  moral  choice 
supplants  instinct  and  is  then  broken  and  set  aside, 


Its  Divine  Foreshadowing  49 

the  laws  of  instinct,  which  guard  the  lower  orders 
of  life,  fail  to  reassert  themselves.  Man  is  left  to 
the  caprice  of  unbridled  passion  and  soon  sinks 
below  the  level  of  the  brute.  The  depth  to  which 
he  sinks  is  in  proportion  to  the  height  from  which 
he  falls,  that  is,  the  extent  to  which  the  laws  of 
instinct  have  been  erased  by  moral  and  ethical 
culture.  A  psychologist  of  deep  insight  has  made 
this  recent  statement  regarding  a  portion  of  the 
population  of  London :  "If  you  could  see  these 
bareheaded  women,  with  their  hanging  hair,  their 
ferocious  eyes,  their  brutal  mouths  ;  if  you  could 
see  them  there,  half-dressed,  and  that  in  a  draggle- 
tailed  slovenliness  incomparably  horrible;  and  if 
you  could  hear  the  appalling  language  loading  their 
hoarse  voices,  and  from  their  phrases  receive  into 
your  mind  some  impression  of  their  modes  of 
thought,  you  would  say  that  human  nature,  in  the 
earliest  and  most  barbarous  of  its  evolutionary 
changes,  had  never,  could  never,  have  been  like 
this  ;  that  these  people  are  moving  on  in  a  line  of 
their  own,  that  they  have  produced  something 
definitely  non-human,  which  is  as  distinct  from 
humanity  as  the  anthropoid  ape,  Ruth,  or  even 
Mary  of  Magdala,  at  the  beginning  of  the  line ; 
two  thousand  years  of  progress ;  and  then  these 
corrupt  and  mangy  things  at  the  end  !  This  is 
not  to  be  believed.  No ;  they  do  not  belong  to 
the  advancing  line,  they  have  never  been  human." 
Let  me  quote  again  from  an  authority  on  social 
conditions  [^in  New  York :   "  A  few  steps  out  of 


JO  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Broadway,  we  came  to  the  vilest  dens  of  infamy. 
In  one  room,  not  more  than  ten  by  twelve,  we 
came  upon  eighteen  human  beings,  men  and  women, 
black  and  white,  American  and  foreign-born,  who 
there  ate,  slept,  and  lived.  In  that  room  we  found 
a  woman  of  the  highest  refinement  and  culture 
with  the  faded  dress  of  a  courtesan  upon  her  dis- 
honored body ;  a  former  leader  in  the  Salvation 
Army,  a  woman  of  sweet  song,  half  drunk;  a 
snoring,  disgusting  negro  wench  ;  an  opium-eating, 
licentious  Italian,  et  al.  !  Out  of  that  den  had  been 
rescued  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
men  this  country  ever  produced ;  and  there  had 
been  found  a  daughter  of  a  Brooklyn  clergyman 
who  had  no  knowledge  of  her  whereabouts."  Here 
we  pass  the  border  line  of  the  kingdom.  Hell  is 
the  region  of  the  dehumanized.  As  we  look  back 
over  the  history  of  the  far  past  and  seek  to  note  its 
shifting,  broken  currents  of  life  and  progress,  we 
cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  some  hidden 
current  of  power  entered  into  Hebrew  history  and 
passed  over  with  increased  potency  into  Chris- 
tianity. It  was  apart  from  and  above,  yet  in  such 
constant  cooperation  with  the  natural  forces  of 
progress  that  subjectively  they  appear  as  one.  The 
individual,  or  the  race  that  is  penetrated  by  this 
hidden  dynamic,  moves  rapidly  upward.  Let  them 
once  fall  away  from  it  and  they  just  as  rapidly  be- 
come dehumanized. 

When  Abram's  spirit  rose  like  a  star  from  out 
the  lustful  bosom  of  the  East  and  westward  moved 


Its  Divine  Foreshadowing  51 

at  God's  command,  their  deep  affinity  for  righteous- 
ness was  welded  strong  in  friendship's  holy  fire. 
Here  we  meet  for  the  first  time  the  clear  strons: 
current  of  God's  friendship  flowing  forth  to  gladden 
the  world.  The  significant  fact  to  note  here  is  that 
God  had  found  a  friend  just  as  much  as  had  Abra- 
ham. It  was  through  the  spiritual  capacity  of  one 
man  for  a  high  and  holy  friendship  that  God 
entered  into  the  starved  life  of  the  world.  Their 
covenant  was  an  inward  companionship  sealed  by 
mutual  trust.  God  had  faith  in  Abraham  and 
Abraham  had  faith  in  God  :  they  loved  and  obeyed 
each  other.  "  Abraham  believed  the  promise  and 
it  was  counted  him  for  righteousness."  Here  was 
the  germ  of  the  greatest  idea  that  has  ever  held  the 
mind  of  man,  namely,  that  history  is  not  under  the 
control  of  the  past  or  the  present,  but  the  future, 
and  that  God  is  present  in  humanity  working 
towards  that  distant  goal.  Great  souls  will  never 
rest  contented  until  they  have  laid  their  most 
precious  possession  upon  the  altar  of  a  noble  friend- 
ship. Is  not  this  the  explanation  of  that  strange 
act  of  Abraham  when  he  sought  to  offer  his  only 
son  Isaac  a  sacrifice  upon  Mount  Moriah  ? 

Other  streams  have  sprung  from  this  same  source 
but  they  lacked  its  inwardness  and  spirituality ; 
hence  they  grew  speedily  coarse  and  sensual ; 
finally  they  became  stagnant  and  foul.  A  great 
and  splendid  river  must  have  its  rise  in  mountain 
springs  and  make  its  own  way  to  the  sea ;  confine 
it  to  artificial  banks  and  it  becomes  a  canal,  while 


^2  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

only  running  water  keeps  pure.  The  hope  of  Chris- 
tianity  lies  in  the  purity  of  its  source,  its  irrepres- 
sible spirit  of  liberty,  and  its  missionary  zeal.  The 
friendship  between  God  and  Abraham  forms  the 
genesis  of  the  missionary  idea.  Its  expansive  and 
diffusive  power  furnishes  the  missionary  dynamic. 
Church  history  is  past  missions  ;  Home  and  Foreign 
Missions  are  present  history,  Trumbull  beautifully 
says,  "  Friendship-love,  as  a  love  that  is  unselfish, 
uncraving,  ever  outgoing,  and  ever  ongoing,  is  in 
its  very  nature  divine  love.  It  is  such  a  love  as 
God  gives,  and  as  man  ought  to  give  to  God.  It 
is  such  a  love  as  man  should  give  to  his  fellow  man 
for  God's  sake.  The  closest  attainable  union  of 
man  with  God  is  a  union  in  friendship-love, — such 
a  union  as  God  proffered  to  His  loved  friend 
Abraham,  and  as  is  a  possibility,  through  the 
Friend  of  friends,  to  every  one  who  by  faith  is  a 
child  of  faithful  Abraham." 

The  divine  friendship  is  inexhaustible,  there- 
fore prophetic.  Wherever  it  appears  it  is  but  the 
promise  of  a  deeper  self-revelation.  As  one  traces 
the  development  of  this  great  idea  through  the 
Scriptures,  he  becomes  deeply  impressed  with  the 
profound  inwardness  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
religions.  They  are  indeed  religions  of  the  Spirit. 
This  inward  union  of  God  with  His  children 
through  the  Spirit,  this  bond  of  friendship,  every- 
where reposes  upon  the  covenant  relationship. 
The  deep  spiritual  insight  of  all  the  Old  Testament 
writers  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  they  reposed  the 


Its  Divine  Foreshadowing  53 

validity  and  permanence  of  the  covenant  relation, 
not  upon  the  external  form,  but  upon  the  character 
of  God  as  that  character  is  revealed  in  His  re- 
demptive work  in  Israel's  history  and  in  the  heart 
of  man.  Thus  it  is  that  the  covenant  relationship 
remains  unbroken  even  when  men  fail  to  keep 
their  part;  thus  it  is  that  the  living  relationship 
to  God  becomes  a  thing  wholly  apart  from  temple 
feast  and  ceremony,  and  becomes  a  thing  of  faith, 
righteousness,  justice,  mercy,  hope  and  love.  Each 
bitter  experience  with  sin,  as  well  as  each  evidence 
of  a  loving  Providence  viewed  in  the  light  of  his- 
tory, enlarges  and  illmninates  the  prophet's  idea  of 
God. 

Moses  looked  deep  into  the  character  of  Jehovah 
and  discovered  His  absolute  holiness.  But  he  also 
knew  Him  as  the  home  of  the  spirit.  Their  rela- 
tionship was  one  of  mutual  indwelling.  Because 
of  this  the  whole  moral  law  was  made  to  rest  upon 
the  character  of  a  holy  and  merciful  God  who 
sought  the  love  and  obedience  of  His  people. 
Moses  was  above  all  else  the  servant  of  God  and 
because  of  this  "  Jehovah  spake  unto  Moses  face  to 
face  as  man  speaketh  unto  his  friend."  Friendship 
rests  upon  a  love  that  goes  out  in  whole-souled 
obedience.  In  speaking  of  Ilosea,  Davidson  says, 
"  However  Hosea  came  by  his  ideas,  whether  in  the 
course  of  his  domestic  trials  he  discovered  in  his 
own  heart  a  love  which  could  not  let  its  object  go, 
however  degraded  she  might  become,  and  rose  by 
inspiration  to  the  intuition  that  such  was  God's 


54  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

love, — however  this  be  he  has  the  idea  of  a  love 
which  is  stronger  than  a  custom  or  law,  or  even 
than  moral  repugnance,  a  love  which  nothing  can 
overcome.  And  this  is  God's  love  to  Israel." 
"The  primal  love  of  Jehovah  to  Israel  fills  the 
foreground  of  each  writer's  discourse,  and  all 
human  relationships  .  .  .  are  rooted  in  this." 
When  God  would  narrow  the  Messianic  hope  to 
a  single  line  descending  from  Abraham  He  chose  as 
the  beginning  of  that  line  a  man  and  a  woman 
capable  of  fine  friendships.  The  world  will  never 
tire  of  reading  those  touching  words  spoken  by 
Euth  to  Naomi : 


' '  Entreat  me  not  to  leave  thee, 
And  to  return  from  following  after  thee ; 
For  whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go  ; 
And  where  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge ; 
Thy  people  shall  be  my  people, 
And  thy  God  my  God  ; 
Where  thou  diest  will  I  die, 
And  there  will  I  be  buried  : 
The  Lord  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also, 
If  aught  but  death  part  thee  and  me." 


Only  the  impelling  power  of  a  true  friendship  could 
have  induced  this  beautiful  young  Moabitess  to 
leave  the  voluptuous  ease  of  her  own  land  for  the 
stern  morality  of  Israel's  God,  the  care  of  an  aged 
outcast,  and  a  home  in  the  midst  of  an  ancient  enemy. 
We  must  never  forget  that  Ruth  was  not  only  the 
friend  of  ISTaomi  but  also  of  Kaomi's  God.     George 


Its  Divine  Foreshadowing  55 

Matheson  would  fasten  our  attention  upon  the 
kindness  of  Boaz  as  the  central  fact  in  this  beauti- 
ful idyl.  It  was  the  marriage  of  Jew  and  Gentile 
conceived  in  sacred  friendship.  From  this  union 
sprang  the  line  of  David  and  through  him  the 
Christ. 

"When  God  would  develop  David  and  make  him 
worthy  of  a  kingly  trust  He  gave  him  a  noble 
friend.  Jonathan  was  a  princely  soul  and  heir, 
by  blood  descent,  to  the  kingdom.  David  was 
a  rustic,  ruddy  lad,  heir  to  the  throne  by  divine 
anointing.  Each  was  conscious  of  his  right.  Rivals, 
they  looked  into  each  other's  faces,  and  were  friends. 
They  could  not  be  otherwise,  for  noble  natures  are 
to  friendship  born  as  water  seeks  its  level.  Friend- 
ship is  the  royal  purple  of  real  kings ;  it  enters  into 
our  being  as  dye  into  the  fabric :  we  are  known  by 
the  color  which  we  wear. 

The  memory  of  that  blessed  friendship  lingered 
about  the  soul  of  David  like  a  halo  of  glory.  He 
found  in  the  deep  response  of  his  own  noble  soul  to 
such  a  friendship  a  clue  to  the  i*eal  character  of  his 
divine  Friend.  Thus  there  crept  into  his  songs  a 
strong  sure  note  of  tender  mercies  and  redeeming 
love,  vibrant  with  a  hidden  undertone  of  Messianic 
hope.  Then  a  wonderful  thing  happened.  One 
evening  as  David  pondered  deeply  on  the  meaning 
of  the  divine  redemption,  God  whispered  to  him 
the  startling  truth  that  from  his  loins  should  spring 
the  Christ,  the  Friend  of  friends. 

In  Isaiah  we  rind  that  the  entire  Messianic  hope 


56  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

takes  its  starting  point  from  the  Davidic  covenant. 
Its  strength  is  derived  from  an  exalted  conception 
of  the  transcendently  spiritual  nature  of  God  Who 
is  ever  moving  towards  His  wayward  people  with 
tenderness  and  S3niipathy  ;  and  from  a  vision  of  the 
ideal  Israel  who  was  to  be  the  servant  of  His  re- 
demptive will.  Gradually  the  ideal  is  narrowed 
and  concentrated  upon  a  single  individual  who 
emerges  as  the  suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah.  His 
sinless  life,  His  solitary  sacrifice,  His  deep  conscious- 
ness that  all  His  ignominy  and  shame,  His  passion 
and  travail  of  soul  was  but  the  will  of  the  Father 
and  would  bring  peace  and  wholeness  to  the  people, 
so  perfectly  foreshadows  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
that  the  mind  of  man  has  forever  associated  them 
as  prophetic  adumbration  and  fulfillment. 

If  the  dominant  note  in  Abraham's  friendship 
with  God  was  fellowship  through  faith  and  obedi- 
ence, that  of  Moses  was  righteousness  through  faith 
and  obedience.  If  David  sang  of  the  tender  mercies 
of  God  bending  to  the  cry  of  a  broken  and  contrite 
heart,  Isaiah  beheld  afar,  God  as  a  solitary  figure 
treading  the  wine-press  alone,  and  led  as  a  lamb  to 
the  slaughter  in  order  that  He  might  heed  that  cry 
and  find  the  sheep  that  was  lost.  Thus  from  the  dim 
foreshadowings  of  the  past,  God's  abiding  friend- 
ship for  man  has  grown  into  a  mighty  river  of  love. 
Patriarch  and  lawgiver,  prophet  and  priest,  king 
and  people  have  mingled  their  countless  experiences, 
their  glorious  victories  and  appalling  defeats,  their 
bitter  sins  and  crushing  sorrows,  their  deep  needs 


Its  Divine  Foreshadowing  57 

and  soul  hungers,  their  hopes,  their  aspirations  and 
their  longing  visions,  until  the  whole  emerges  in  the 
crowning  personality  of  the  Christ.  In  the  friend- 
ship of  Jesus,  God  and  man  meet,  forever  after  to 
be  companions  of  the  common  way. 


V 

AN  HISTORICAL  AND  SCRIPTUEAL    FACT 

REALITY  is  to  religion  what  oxygen  is  to 
the  atmosphere.  Only  the  vital  is  real ; 
"  that  is  most  which  is  inmost."  When 
God,  through  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation, 
veiled  Deity  in  human  flesh  He  did  not  mean  that 
we  should  rest  content  with  the  rapturous  beauty 
of  the  outward  form.  True,  we  need  the  historic 
Christ  to  save  us  from  a  false  subjectivism  but  we 
also  need  the  great  inward  reality  of  His  person  to 
save  us  from  a  vague  culture  of  the  soul.  It  is  the 
highest  test  of  a  great  life  that  it  demands  of  each 
succeeding  age  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  itself. 
Surely  the  present  age  will  not  rest  content  with 
the  explanation  that  Christianity  is  merely  a  "  great 
spiritual  drama  evolved  out  of  the  inner  conscious- 
ness of  the  early  Church  ;  a  purely  fictitious  creation 
embodying  only  certain  deep  insights  of  the  human 
soul."  On  the  other  hand,  as  we  turn  to  the  life 
and  words  of  our  Lord,  the  question  at  once  arises, 
"Was  Jesus  content  that  the  men  whom  He  drew 
around  Him  should  know  Him  only  as  a  dear  but 
earthly  friend ;  or  did  He  seek  to  lead  them  into 
some  interior  relation  to  Him  that  would  lift  their 
conception  of  His  friendship  above  the  limitations 

58 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        59 

of  the  fleshly  and  ground  it  in  the  eternal  and 
timeless  Spirit  ?  When  Jesus  moved  amongst  the 
lowly  of  this  earth  with  such  a  tenderness  of  com- 
passion and  complete  identification  of  social  and 
religious  interests  that  He  won  for  Himself,  even 
from  His  enemies,  His  dearest  name,  "  Friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners  "  did  He  aim  to  satisfy  only 
their  human  needs  or  did  He  mean  that  His  friend- 
ship for  them  should  also  cleanse  and  purify  and 
save? 

At  the  opening  of  our  Lord's  public  ministry,  all 
four  of  the  Gospels  present  the  rugged  but  com- 
manding personality  of  John  the  Baptist.  As  I 
have  elsewhere  said,  he  was  stern,  prophetic,  un- 
compromising, yet  full  of  pathos ;  great  with  a 
splendid  sense  of  power,  yet  humble  as  a  child  ; — 
simple  but  sublime.  Many  elements  entered  into 
the  making  of  his  character.  Beside  the  rich  inherit- 
ance of  childhood,  there  was  a  fine  mingling  of 
mountain  peaks  and  desert  wastes,  of  shining  rivers 
and  prophetic  voices.  His  passion  for  righteous- 
ness, his  clear-cut  denunciation  of  sin,  his  peculiar 
power  to  penetrate  beneath  the  shams  and  hypocri- 
sies of  his  day,  together  with  his  prophetic  an- 
nouncement of  the  coming  of  his  Lord  bid  fair  to 
enthrone  him  in  the  religious  life  and  thought  of 
his  day.  There  is  one  utterance  of  John  common 
in  substance  to  all  four  Evangelists.  "  I  indeed 
baptize  you  in  water  unto  repentance  ;  but  He  that 
Cometh  after  me  is  mightier  than  I,  whose  shoes  I 
am  not  worthy  to  bear :  He  shall  baptize  you  in  the 


6o  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Holy  Spirit  and  in  fire."  Later  on,  when  the  rela- 
tion between  John  and  Jesus  had  ripened  into  a 
beautiful  friendship  and  the  popularity  of  John 
seemed  about  to  suffer  a  total  eclipse  because  of  the 
growing  influence  and  attractiveness  of  his  greater 
Friend,  we  find  him  saying,  "  He  that  hath  the  bride 
is  the  bridegroom :  but  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom 
that  standeth  and  heareth  him,  rejoiceth  greatly  be- 
cause of  the  bridegroom's  voice :  this  my  joy  there- 
fore is  made  full.  He  must  increase  but  I  must 
decrease."  If  the  mark  of  a  true  friendship  is  joy 
over  the  triumph  of  a  friend  then  this  was  a  great 
friendship ;  but  when  that  triumph  means  your  own 
decrease  then  it  is  the  greatest  of  all  friendships. 
John  saw  clearly  that  the  mission  of  Jesus  was 
deeply  moral  and  spiritual.  He  also  perceived 
that  the  only  way  to  enter  in  and  share  that  life 
was  through  complete  self-effacement. 

Take  that  utterance  of  Jesus  recorded  so  many 
times  by  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke :  "  If  any  man 
would  come  after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and 
take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  Me.  For  whosoever 
would  save  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  whosoever 
shall  lose  his  life  for  My  sake  and  the  gospel's  shall 
save  it.  For  what  doth  it  profit  a  man,  to  gain  the 
whole  world,  and  forfeit  his  life  ?  For  what  should 
a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  life  ?  For  whoso- 
ever shall  be  ashamed  of  Me  and  of  My  words  in 
this  adulterous  and  sinful  generation,  the  Son  of 
man  also  shall  be  ashamed  of  him,  when  He  cometh 
in  the  glory  of  His  Father  with  the  holy  angels. 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        6l 

And  He  said  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
there  are  some  here  of  them  that  stand  by,  who 
shall  in  no  wise  taste  of  death,  till  they  see  the 
kingdom  of  God  come  with  power  "  (Mark  viii.  34- 
ix.  1).  Friendship  with  Jesus  is  assimilation  into 
the  great  spiritual  realities  that  lie  back  of  His 
earthly  life.  The  obedience  demanded  by  Jesus 
is,  as  Gould  well  says,  "  to  be  voluntary  and  unen- 
forced, and  His  own  road  to  kingship  is  through 
repudiation  and  death.  This  absolute  self-efface- 
ment is,  moreover,  the  principle  of  the  kingdom  and 
required  of  all  its  members."  Complete  self-efface- 
ment is  open  identification  of  our  life  with  Christ's 
life  and  a  mutual  cooperation  in  the  building  up  of 
His  kingdom.  This  calls  for  no  cringing,  spineless, 
self-abnegation  but  for  a  magnificent  and  continu- 
ous self-assertion  of  all  that  is  pure,  noble,  coura- 
geous, and  self-sacrificing  in  our  manhood.  "  Con- 
secration is  not  amputation"  but  big,  glorious 
growth.  He  who  will  not  soar  at  the  very  thought 
of  such  a  Christ  must  either  shed  his  feathers  or 
"  keep  his  wing'd  affections  dipt  with  crime."  To 
be  ashamed  of  Jesus  is  to  betray  the  intrinsic 
nobility  of  one's  better  self. 

To  gain  life  is  to  apparently  give  up  that  which 
men  most  seek  to  obtain.  It  was  a  source  of  un- 
ending amazement  and  sorrow  to  Jesus  that  men 
should  so  fail  to  sense  the  inward  reality  of  this 
fundamental  mystical  paradox.  It  was  this  failure 
that  caused  the  rich  young  ruler  to  turn  away  sor- 
rowful and  so  miss  the  offered  friendship  of  the 


62  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Son  of  God  Who  so  loved  him.  Friendship  with 
Jesus  demands  a  magnificent  but  sane  contempt  for 
wealth.  Man  is  as  great  as  his  affections.  God 
shuns  the  narrow  heart  but  takes  up  His  abode  in 
the  ample  bosom  of  a  princely  poverty.  "  For  ye 
know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that 
though  He  was  rich,  yet  for  your  sakes  He  became 
poor,  that  ye  through  His  poverty  might  become 
rich." 

These  words  of  Professor  James  are  well  worth 
pondering :  "  The  mystery  that  he  who  feeds  on 
death  that  feeds  on  men  possesses  life  and  meets  best 
the  secret  demands  of  the  universe,  is  the  truth  of 
which  asceticism  has  been  the  faithful  champion. 
The  folly  of  the  cross,  so  inexplicable  by  the  intellect, 
has  yet  its  indestructible  vital  meaning.  Naturalistic 
optimism  is  mere  syllabub  and  flattery  and  sponge- 
cake in  comparison.  .  .  .  What  we  now  need  to 
discover  in  the  social  realm  is  the  moral  equivalent 
of  war :  something  heroic  that  will  speak  to  men  as 
universally  as  war  does,  and  yet  will  be  as  com- 
patible with  their  spiritual  selves  as  war  has  proved 
itself  to  be  incompatible.  .  .  .  When  one  sees 
the  way  in  which  wealth-getting  enters  as  an  ideal 
into  the  very  bone  and  marrow  of  our  generation, 
one  wonders  whether  voluntarily  accepted  poverty 
may  not  be  '  the  transformation  of  military  cour- 
age.' .  .  .  We  have  grown  literally  afraid  to 
be  poor.  We  despise  any  one  who  elects  to  be 
poor  in  order  to  simplify  and  save  his  inner  life.  It 
is  certain  that  the  prevalent  fear  of  poverty  among 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        63 

the  educated  classes  is  the  worst  moral  disease  from 
which  our  civilization  suffers."  Over  against  this 
picture  of  our  present-day  life  place  St,  Matthew's 
splendid  siunmary  of  our  Lord's  Galilean  ministry. 
"  From  that  time  began  Jesus  to  preach,  and  to 
say,  Repent  ye ;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand.  And  walking  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  He  saw 
two  brethren,  Simon  who  is  called  Peter,  and  An- 
drew his  brother,  casting  a  net  into  the  sea ;  for 
they  were  fishers.  And  He  saith  unto  them,  Come 
ye  after  Me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men. 
And  they  straightway  left  the  nets,  and  followed 
Him.  And  going  on  from  thence.  He  saw  two 
other  brethren,  James  the  son  of  Zebedee,  and  John 
his  brother,  in  the  boat  with  Zebedee  their  father, 
mending  their  nets ;  and  He  called  them.  And 
they  straightway  left  the  boat  and  their  father,  and 
followed  Him.  And  Jesus  went  about  in  all  Gali- 
lee, teaching  in  their  synagogues,  and  preaching 
the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  and  healing  all  manner 
of  disease  and  all  manner  of  sickness  among  the 
people."  Friendship  with  Jesus  is  membership  in 
His  kingdom.  The  way  into  the  kingdom  is 
through  the  cleansed  life,  the  surrendered  mil,  and 
the  caU  to  service.  See  those  splendid  young  men 
leaving  their  nets  to  follow  the  Christ.  No  falter- 
ing trust  or  doubt,  no  paltry  excuse,  no  feeble 
fumbling  of  a  great  purpose,  but  straightwa)''  they 
left  their  nets.  Into  His  life  they  went  through 
forgiveness  and  obedience ;  out  from  His  life  they 
passed  to  a  career  of  social  service  such  as  the 


64  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

world  has  never  seen.  They  were  to  teach;  for 
education  is  to  the  kingdom  what  steel  girdere  are 
to  a  buildmg.  They  were  to  preach  ;  lifting,  high 
above  the  confusion  and  the  din,  lofty  ideals  and 
standards  of  value — duty,  truth,  justice,  mercy, 
holiness  and  love.  They  were  to  heal  all  manner 
of  disease ;  physical  disease,  moral  disease,  disease 
of  the  body  politic,  disease  of  the  soul ;  disease  due 
to  heredity  and  environment.  They  were  to  heal 
by  prevention  as  well  as  by  rescue ;  fight  the  bat- 
tles of  the  weak,  the  outcast,  the  poor,  the  op- 
pressed. In  short  they  were  to  participate  in  the 
entire  recreation  of  the  socially  unfit  by  throwing 
themselves  athwart  the  old  processes  of  elimination. 
Elimination  of  the  unfit  to  survive  by  spiritual  re- 
creation, by  rooting  ethical  and  moral  advancement 
in  a  religion  of  the  Spirit.  Here  was  a  program  of 
social  reconstruction,  so  radical,  so  far-reaching,  so 
daring  that  it  has  ever  since  staggered  and  chal- 
lenged the  human  mind  to  fully  conceive  its  unfold 
ing  possibilities. 

Perhaps  I  have  given  too  much  space  to  the 
development  of  this  more  active  and  heroic  aspect 
of  the  friendship  of  Jesus,  but  I  could  not  help  it. 
Even  now,  as  I  write,  I  feel  the  iron  creeping  into 
my  blood ;  and  my  heart  burns  as  I  catch  visions  of 
the  splendid  opportunities  open  to  the  young  man- 
hood and  womanhood  of  the  world  when  once  they 
enter  into  this  blessed  friendship  of  our  Lord  and 
Christ.  Irresistibly  I  am  drawn  to  those  noble 
words  of  Stanley :  "  I  was  shocked  to  hear,  on  get- 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        65 

ting  ashore,  of  the  death  of  Livingstone  at  Ilala. 
Dear  Livingstone !  another  sacrifice  to  Africa  I 
His  mission  must  not  be  allowed  to  cease ;  others 
must  go  forward  and  till  the  gap.  '  Close  up,  boys  ! 
close  up !  Death  must  find  us  everywhere.'  May 
I  be  selected  to  succeed  him  in  opening  up  Africa 
to  the  shining  light  of  Christianity  !  May  Living- 
stone's God  be  with  me,  as  He  was  with  Living- 
stone in  all  his  loneliness.  May  God  direct  me  as 
He  wills.  I  can  only  vow  to  be  obedient,  and  not 
to  slacken." 

The  real  inwardness  of  Christ's  friendship  is  set 
forth  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew.  It  is 
impossible  to  read  the  Beatitudes  without  catching 
the  sound  of  a  hidden  harmony  that  tells  of  the 
soul's  approach  to  the  great  heart  of  God.  Leaving 
the  overt  act,  Jesus  penetrates  to  the  motives  and 
attitudes  that  control  our  lives  ;  here  He  finds  the 
broken  law.  Starting  with  the  common  ethical 
idea  that  a  man  should  love  his  neighbor  and  hate 
his  enemy,  he  finds  the  root  of  all  ethics  in  sonship 
with  the  Father,  and  from  this  deep  subsoil  grows 
a  love  that  touches  every  spring  of  human  action, 
includes  even  our  enemies,  and  bears  at  last  the 
fruit  of  perfect  character. 

Closely  allied  to  this  group  of  sayings  are  those 
luminous  and  beautiful  w^ords  recorded  by  St.  Mat- 
thew and  partly  by  St.  Luke :  "  All  things  have 
been  delivered  unto  Me  of  My  Father :  and  no  one 
knoweth  the  Son,  save  the  Father ;  neither  doth 
any  know  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to 


66  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  Him.  Come 
unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  My  yoke  upon  you, 
and  learn  of  Me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in 
heart :  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For 
My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  burden  is  light."  This 
deeply  mystical  passage  leads  us  into  the  heart  of 
all  things.  The  Father  reveals  Himself  through 
His  Son.  He  who  sees  the  unseen  and  makes 
other  men  to  see  what  he  sees  through  the  medium 
of  his  own  character,  that  man  is  godlike.  This 
is  the  highest  form  of  revelation,  for  it  is  divine 
revelation  and  self-revelation  combined.  "  He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  Whomsoever 
Jesus  admits  into  His  friendship  enters  into  and 
shares  with  Him  the  life  of  God.  Here  we  learn 
the  Father's  will  and  rejoice ;  for  the  meek  shall  in- 
herit the  earth.  Here  we  feel  His  strength  and  our 
burdens  grow  light ;  for  rest  reposes  upon  the  glad 
sense  of  power.  Here  we  share  His  love  and  the 
galling  friction  of  the  yoke  is  gone  ;  for  love  is  the 
oil  of  the  soul.  Here  we  live  anew  in  His  holiness 
and  the  guilt  of  sin  takes  wings  ;  for  the  holy  heart 
of  God  is  infinite  peace.  All  the  yearnings  of  all 
the  ages  are  here  voiced  as  by  a  single  corporate 
soul.  There  is  in  these  words  a  tenderness,  an  ap- 
pealing sympathy,  and  a  hidden  reality  that  makes 
the  lives  of  men  to  move  about  them  like  stars  in 
their  orbits.  They  open  outwardly  to  all  the  com- 
mon experiences  of  life,  and  inwardly  to  all  the 
deep  mysteries  of  God ;  they  are  instinct  with  a 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        67 

song  that  human  ears  can  hear ;  yet  filled  with  the 
hidden  harmonies  of  the  higher  friendship. 

This  evening,  as  the  sun  sank  behind  the  hills,  it 
flung  a  flame  of  crimson  glory  far  across  the  sky. 
Caught  up  by  the  tumultuous  rolling  of  the  clouds, 
it  seemed  like  the  folds  of  a  blood-red  flag  stream- 
ing in  the  night'-winds  of  heaven.  At  noon,  the 
sun  vras  glorious,  like  unto  burnished  gold;  to- 
night it  sank  in  a  sea  of  blood  and  now  all  is  dark 
about  us.  But  we  know  that  it  will  rise  again,  and 
did  we  not  know  this,  our  lives  would  be  filled  with 
freezing  fears. 

Jesus  and  His  disciples  were  in  the  upper  room 
in  Jerusalem.  Judas  had  gone  and  it  was  night. 
Without,  in  the  streets,  the  fretful  crowd  surged  to 
and  fro  half  conscious  of  some  impending  crisis. 
Within,  Jesus  looked  into  the  troubled  faces  of 
those  most  dear  to  Him.  They,  too,  had  sensed 
some  deep  sorrow  close  at  hand.  His  disciples 
were  very  precious  to  Him  and  with  great  desire 
our  Lord  desired  to  eat  the  Passover  with  them  be- 
fore He  suffered.  At  the  close  of  the  meal  He 
took  a  piece  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  wine,  and  over 
these  simple,  common  elements  He  uttered  strange 
words  which  only  deepened  their  bewilderment. 
He  spoke  of  going  away  where  they  could  not  then 
go,  of  His  broken  body  and  shed  blood,  of  death  on 
the  cruel  and  shameful  cross.  The  disciples  could 
not  then  understand.  They  only  felt  the  nearness 
of  unutterable  loss.  They  had  beheld  Him  in  the 
noontide  of  His  glory  and  had  loved  Him  devotedly. 


68  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Now  they  watched  the  dearest  friend  that  earth 
has  ever  known  like  the  great  and  glorious  sun, 
going  down  into  a  sea  of  blood  and  they  knew  not 
that  He  would  rise  again.  To  be  sure  Jesus  had 
told  them  that  He  would  but  they  had  not  under- 
stood. As  a  consequence,  "sorrow  filled  their 
hearts,  and  as  frightened  children  clutch  a  mother's 
skirts,  so  with  a  painful  instinct  they  held  that 
Friend  and  Teacher  whose  presence  and  love  had 
grown  to  be  their  whole  life.  They  were  troubled 
too  deeply  to  reason  well  upon  the  purpose  and 
way  of  His  going;  they  only  longed  not  to  lose 
Him,  and  clung  to  Him  with  a  suffocating  pre- 
monition." 

Long  into  the  night  Jesus  talked  to  them ;  but 
John,  alone,  seemed  to  have  been  impressionable. 
In  later  years  it  all  came  back  to  him,  suffused  with 
the  glow  of  a  precious,  spiritual  presence.  The 
words  spoken  by  our  Saviour  that  memorable  night 
were  meant  to  unfold  the  meaning  of  the  sacred 
sacrament  which  He  had  instituted.  Back  of  it 
and  breathing  out  through  it  is  the  presence  of  the 
risen  Christ  who  makes  possible  a  mutual  indwell- 
ing, a  sacred  friendship  far  more  deeply  interfused 
with  the  life  of  God  than  was  possible  with  His 
physical  presence.  This  is  the  deepest  self-revela- 
tion of  Jesus.  He  uses  three  ideas  to  express  Him- 
self :  the  ever-present  comforter,  the  true  vine,  and 
a  self-sacrificing  friendship. 

"  If  I  go  not  away  the  Paraclete  will  not  come." 
"  Thus,"  says  President  Stryker,  "  does  Christ  affirm 


An  Historical  and  Scriptural  Fact        69 

Himself  the  connection  between  the  outmost  and 
the  inmost,  the  God  above  and  the  God  within  the 
soul,  and  lays  His  hand  upon  both."  "  God  shows 
His  love,  both  in  the  course  of  time  and  in  the 
progress  of  each  recovered  heart,  in  three  consecu- 
tive and  completing  manifestations.  They  are 
climatic :  Creation,  Incarnation,  Inspiration.  The 
universe  about  and  above,  the  animate  body  with 
and  before  us,  the  deep  soul  within, — these  are  the 
vessels  of  revelation,  affirming  His  power.  His  per- 
sonality, and  His  unseen  presence.  Reason,  sense, 
and  intuition  answer  Him, — Maker,  Kinsman  and 
Companion, — and  in  all,  the  Lord  and  lover." 


PART  II 
The  Realization  of  His  Friendship 


Yl 
THEOUGH  THE  LONELINESS  OF  SIN 

A  LIFE  without  a  noble  friendship  is  a  harp 
untuned.  Selfishness  and  sin  are  the  fin- 
gers of  discord.  Inharmonious  murmur- 
ing marks  their  very  touch.  The  friendship  of 
Jesus  is  the  hidden  harmony  that  dispels  discord. 
Touched  by  the  master  fingers  of  the  Christ,  the 
long-discordant  soul,  like  some  neglected  lyre, 
leaps  and  gives  to  rapture  all  its  trembling  strings. 
Oh,  Thou  Invisible  Companion  of  choice  spirits  and 
brave  souls,  breathe  Thyself  tlirough  us  !  Impart 
to  us  Thy  secret,  oh,  our  Friend,  then  will  we  make 
love  our  daily  liturgy  and  all  our  lives  will  speak 
their  humble  lines  like  the  mystic  music  of  some 
noble  poem. 

The  friendship  of  Jesus  is  a  divinely  created 
necessity.  We  see  this  in  the  very  structure  of  the 
soul.  Our  deeper  feelings  are  the  source  of  both 
our  social  inclusiveness  and  our  individuality,  or 
aloneness.  Of  the  two  the  latter  is  the  more  inward 
and  personal.  Man  is  therefore  a  social  being 
made  to  live  alone.  We  are  all  made  the  same, 
yet  no  two  are  alike.  Individuality  is  inner  isola- 
tion. Solitude  is  the  price  of  personality.  Loneli- 
ness is  the  unavoidable  fact  of  life.  "  You  can 
know  what  I  know  and  you  can  will  what  I  will 

73 


74  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

but  you  cannot  by  any  possibility  feel  what  I  feel ; 
this  is  subjectivity,  this  peculiar  and  unapproach- 
able isolation  of  one  consciousness  from  another." 

We  must  not  confuse  aloneness  with  aloofness. 
Aloofness  is  cold,  exclusive,  unresponsive,  unsympa- 
thetic, selfish.  It  is  individuality  without  soul  and 
without  the  power  to  communicate  itself.  Alone- 
ness is  just  the  opposite.  It  is  the  basic  factor  in 
the  social  instinct.  It  is  the  potent  element  in  the 
everlasting  craving  for  friendship.  It  is  the  spirit- 
ual within  us  rising  into  conscious  being  through 
contact  with  other  persons.  Our  loneliness  con- 
sists in  the  inability  of  human  friendships  to  meet 
our  deepest  needs  and  to  call  us  forth  to  our  highest 
and  our  finest  self-realization.  While  it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  be  alone  it  is  impossible  for  him 
not  to  be  alone.  It  is  out  of  the  depth  of  our  finer 
feelings  that  all  true  friendship  springs.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  in  the  depth  of  our  finer  feelings 
that  we  discover  the  sacredness  and  inviolability 
of  our  truer  and  diviner  selves.  The  very  forces 
of  our  nature,  which  compel  us  to  sociability  and 
community  of  life,  say  to  us  imperatively — "  thus 
far  and  no  farther." 

Yet  this  inner  part  of  our  life,  which  is  left  alone 
because  of  the  limitations  of  human  friendship,  is 
even  more  in  need  of  a  friend ;  for  it  is  here  we 
live  and  aspire,  think  and  theorize,  are  tempted  and 
sin,  suffer  and  sorrow,  despair  and  hope,  believe 
and  rejoice,  love  and  endure.  And  this  is  just  why 
God  has  so  shut  the  world  out.     Here  He  would 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Sin  75 

have  us  for  Himself.  "We  would  not  have  it  other- 
wise. "  There  is  within  every  life  a  Holy  of  Holies 
over  the  threshold  of  which  no  human  feet  can 
pass."  Only  the  divine  Friend  can  enter  here, 
and  the  wonderful  thing  about  His  entrance  is  that 
it  never  brings  with  it  the  slightest  shadow  of 
intrusion  save  when  sin  has  barred  the  door.  God 
is  a  person  and  not  a  mere  individual.  For  that 
reason  He  can  enter  where  individuals  cannot  go  ; 
and,  unless  He  does  enter  into  and  fill  our  Holy 
of  Holies,  all  our  human  friendships  will  bear  the 
stamp  of  the  earthly  and  the  sensuous. 

Friendship  with  Jesus  is  the  highest  relation 
into  which  any  human  being  can  enter.  "When  the 
limitations  of  human  friendship  would  leave  us 
lonely  Jesus  enters  into  a  larger  companionship. 
This  is  true  even  when  sin  separates  us  from  God 
and  our  loneliness  is  unutterable  and  complete. 
The  loneliness  of  the  soul  takes  one  of  several 
forms.  There  is  the  loneliness  of  sin  which  we 
bring  upon  ourselves.  There  is  also  the  loneliness 
of  pain  and  of  sorrow,  of  high  ideals  and  of  subtle 
temptations,  of  doubt  and  of  death.  These  are  im- 
posed upon  us  by  the  nature  of  our  life  and  are  the 
conditions  of  a  richer  fellowship  with  God. 

The  loneliness  of  sin  is  unbearable.  God  is  shut 
out  and  man  is  shut  in  alone  with  his  sin. 

As  the  wood  when  leaves  are  shed, 
As  the  niglit  wlien  sleep  has  fled, 
As  the  heart  when  joy  is  dead, 
I  am  alone,  alone." 


76  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Loneliness  is  the  only  lyric  of  a  lost  world.  Friend- 
ship is  the  silent  song  of  a  redeemed  humanity. 
Sin  like  a  siren  lures  the  soul  to  shores  of  un- 
utterable solitude.  Chiist,  with  friendship's  more 
than  Orphean  sweetness,  guides  the  sailor,  home- 
ward bound,  o'er  hidden  shoal  and  storm-swept  sea. 
Sin  adulterates  aifection,  saps  the  springs  of  joy, 
perverts  and  palsies  the  will,  negatives  thought, 
falsifies  truth,  betrays  conscience,  beclouds  the 
spiritual  vision  and  desecrates  the  inner  shrine  of 
the  Spirit.  Sin  is  cruel,  weak,  selfish,  and  cowardly. 
It  is  most  cowardly  when  most  it  seems  courageous. 
Such  is  "  the  courage  and  the  cowardice  of  sin," 
It  is  big  with  promises,  only  to  delude  and  deride, 
to  mock  and  to  mutilate,  the  cherished  hope  of  the 
soul.  Sin  separates  and  insulates:  nature  hides 
her  face  in  shame  and  all  earth's  dearest  friend- 
ships undergo  a  subtle  estrangement.  How  much 
more  is  this  true  between  the  sinner  and  God  1 
The  sense  of  shame,  the  feeling  of  lost  confidence, 
the  moral  certainty  of  guilt,  have  broken  the  bond 
of  fellowship  with  nature,  with  nature's  God,  and 
with  one's  fellow  men.  Man  becomes  a  lone 
wanderer  upon  the  face  of  the  world.  The  more 
he  seeks  society,  the  lonelier  he  becomes.  The 
world  seems  against  him.  His  very  soul  becomes 
divided  against  itself.  It  is  more  than  he  can  bear. 
Such  was  the  sin  of  Cain.  "  And  Cain  said  unto 
Jehovah,  My  punishment  is  greater  than  I  can 
bear.  Behold  Thou  hast  driven  me  out  this  day 
from  the  face  of  the  ground ;  and  from  Thy  face 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Sin  77 

shall  I  be  hid:  and  I  shall  be  a  fugitive  and  a 
wanderer  in  the  earth :  and  it  will  come  to  pass 
that  whosoever  findeth  me  will  slay  me."  It  is  the 
common  experience  of  men.  Alone  !  Alone  !  with 
sin  haunting  the  stricken  conscience  like  a  shadowy- 
spectre.  In  such  a  state  a  man  will  pass  from 
despair  through  melancholia  to  suicide,  or  he  will 
be  driven  to  desperation,  defiance  and  damnation. 
There  is  but  one  way  of  escape  and  that  is  through 
friendship  with  Christ  to  God. 

There  are  two  experiences  where  this  crushing 
sense  of  loneliness  because  of  sin  is  complete.  "We 
meet  with  them  in  our  own  prayer-Ufe  and  in  the 
experience  of  Christ  on  the  cross.  Prayer  is  the 
language  of  the  divine  friendship.  It  finds  com- 
plete expression  only  in  the  presence  of  unbroken 
confidence.  Let  sin  have  its  way  ever  so  little  and 
instantly  there  springs  up  an  invisible  barrier  be- 
tween the  soul  and  God.  Sin  kills  the  spirit  of 
prayer  and  strangles  its  every  utterance.  Words 
are  a  mere  mockery  and  form  a  falsehood, — that 
our  soul  knoweth  quite  well.  God  has  been  shut  out. 
We  are  alone  with  our  sin.  Ourselves  we  dare  not 
forgive.  We  are  dumb  before  our  Maker.  Our 
loneliness  is  complete.  We  fall  to  the  ground. 
We  are  crushed.  We  utter  a  smothered  penitent 
cry.  It  is  the  stifled  sob  of  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
heart.  We  turn  instinctively,  wistfully,  beseech- 
ingly, to  Calvary.  We  need  a  friend,  a  divine 
Friend,  a  Friend  who  knows  the  worst,  who  sees 
the  trail  of  the  serpent  over  our  once  pure  lives  and 


^8  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

loves  us  still.  That  Friend  is  ever  near  at  hand 
and  fully  understands  and  fully  satisfies. 

Jesus  fully  understands  because  He  has  sounded 
the  same  experience.  He  fully  satisfies  because 
His  fair  sweet  Spirit  has  never  known  the  stairi  and 
the  shame  of  sin.  Surely  this  is  the  meaning  of 
that  mysterious  cry  from  the  cross — "My  God, 
My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?  "  For  one 
brief  moment  He  took  upon  Himself  the  sin  of  the 
world  and  bore  its  penalty  of  unspeakable  isolation. 
Alone,  when  the  ribald  mockery  of  men  rang  in 
His  ears  and  grief-stricken  friends  were  helpless. 
Alone,  when  nature,  with  her  deepest  laws  violated, 
veiled  her  face  with  dense  darkness.  Alone,  when 
the  silence  of  heaven  remained  unbroken.  Hu- 
manity, nature,  and  God,  all  were  shut  out  from 
His  life.  He  stood  in  the  presence  of  awful,  unut- 
terable negation,  which  is  the  logic  of  sin.  His  cry 
was  the  cry  of  the  Psalmist,  the  inevitable  cry  of  a 
lost  world.  It  cost  Him  His  life,  and  "greater 
love  hath  no  man  than  'this,  that  a  man  lay  down 
his  life  for  his  friends."  Then  it  was  that  He  who 
knew  no  sin,  having  stood  with  a  lost  world  on  the 
black  brink  of  infinite  isolation,  turned  and  led  the 
lonely  heart  of  himianity  back  into  a  holy  friend- 
ship with  God.  The  power  of  Jesus  to  so  enter 
into  this  the  prof  oundest  experience  of  the  race  must 
ever  remain  the  mystery  and  the  potency  of  the 
divine  friendship,  the  divine  redemption. 

Once  and  for  all  the  Saviour  of  men  has  paid  the 
awful  price,  broken  the  power  of  sin,  and  opened 


Through  the  Lonehness  of  Sin  79 

up  the  way  back  to  God.  We  are  drawn  to  our 
uplifted  and  risen  Lord  as  irresistibly  as  the  steel 
to  the  magnet.  Union  with  Chiist  is  separation 
from  sin ;  it  is  life  out  of  a  living  death.  So  rich, 
so  inexhaustible  is  the  atoning  work  of  Jesus  that 
no  one  can  pretend  adequately  to  define  it  for  every 
other  man.  Each  sin-stained,  contrite  soul  must 
draw  near  and  know  its  peace  and  learn  for  himself 
its  glorious  power.  To  remain  away  from  the  holy 
heart  of  Jesus  because  your  sin  is  deep  is  to  commit 
the  deepest  sin  of  all.  Sin  dies  m  the  continued 
presence  of  a  pure  life  ;  the  loneliness  of  sin  is  just 
the  sin  of  allowing  one's  self  to  be  alone.  One 
long,  earnest  look  into  the  face  of  the  Chi'ist  will 
kill  the  love  of  sin  completely. 

"  O  loose  me,  seest  thou  not  my  Bridegroom's  face 
That  draws  me  to  Hira'?    For  His  feet  my  kiss, 
My  hair,  my  tears  He  craves  to-day  : — and  oh  ! 
What  words  can  tell  what  other  day  and  place 
Shall  see  me  clasp  those  blood-stained  feet  of  His  ? 
He  needs  me — calls  me — loves  me — let  me  go  ! " 

St.  Paul  has  an  even  more  beautiful  picture  of 
Jesus  in  mind  when  he  ^^^'ites  in  Second  Corin- 
thians. It  is  the  image  of  the  Christ-face  formed 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  chambers  of  each  man's 
soul.  "  But  we  all  with  unveiled  face  beholding  as 
in  a  mirror,  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  transformed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory  even  as 
from  the  Lord  the  Spirit."  Oh  !  Avith  what  strong, 
tender    love    and   sympathetic   insight  Jesus   has 


8o  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

drawn  near  to  the  broken,  lonely,  sin-stained  hearts 
of  men  and  women  in  all  ages.  He  is  more  real 
and  present  with  us  to-day  than  He  was  when  He 
made  friends  of  sinful  Mary  and  John  and  Peter 
and  Judas.  Yes,  He  is  with  us  now  and  the  loneli- 
ness of  sin  is  just  the  sin  of  allowing  ourselves  to  be 
alone. 


VII 

THEOUGH  THE  LONELINESS  OF  GEEAT 
IDEALS  AND  THEIR  TEMPTATIONS 

MAN  is  inwrought  with  the  ideal  as  the 
moimtains  are  veined  with  gold.  To 
discover  it,  to  refine  it,  to  stamp  it  with 
the  divine  insignia  and  make  it  pass  current  in  so- 
ciety, this  is  the  great  task  of  life.  What  is  this 
ideal  but  the  deeply  rooted  feeling  that  within  our- 
selves there  lies  both  the  possibility  of,  and  the  re- 
sponsibility for,  attaining  the  best.  Our  ideal  is 
therefore  bound  up  with  the  free  expression  of  a 
personal  will.  Modern  science,  in  its  search  for 
truth,  has  found  the  universe  to  be  ethical  to  the 
core.  It  has  also  looked  into  history  and  has  be- 
held there  the  manifold  evidence  of  a  supreme  and 
good  wdll  working  towards  an  ideal  society  within 
the  free  state.  Looking  into  man  it  finds  the  same 
great  purpose  struggling  into  being.  Weigh  well 
these  words  of  Huxley,  quoted  by  President  Faunce : 
"  Science  teaches,  in  the  clearest  and  strongest 
manner,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  entire  surrender 
to  the  will  of  God." 

What  does  this  mean  for  the  young  man  and 
woman  of  to-day  ?  It  means  two  things :  First, 
that  the  finest  self  is  gained  only  through  social 

81 


82  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

contact  and  that,  therefore,  the  ideal  best  is 
achieved  only  in  an  ideal  society ;  again,  it  means 
that  the  whole  constitution  of  the  universe  is 
pledged  to  the  final  attainment  of  this  ideal.  But 
this  is  njot  all.  "  The  roots  of  individuality  go  as 
deep  as  the  deepest  being."  Our  will,  with  its 
passion  for  the  best,  drives  us  into  religion — a  su- 
preme, personal  and  creative  will  energizing  all 
nature  and  expressing  itself  through  history  and 
especially  through  the  personality  of  the  Incarnate 
Christ.  This  is  the  greatness,  the  glory,  and  the 
promise  of  the  Christian  ideal. 

Christianity  has  given  the  world  an  ideal  of  per- 
fect society.  I^ot  only  does  the  kingdom  of  God 
include  the  Church  now  and  hereafter,  but  also  a  free 
moral  state  pledged  to  the  exalted  freedom  of  the 
individual,  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  Brother- 
hood of  Man.  The  Church  has  not  kept  up  with  its 
ideal.  Indeed,  it  cannot.  Vision  must  always  out- 
run attainment.  Every  clear  act  of  achievement  by 
which  we  approach  our  ideal  enlarges  by  so  much 
that  ideal  which  we  seek  to  approach. 

A  young  man's  ideal  is  first  of  all  an  ideal  self,  a 
supreme  moral  character.  But  ideal  character  is 
developed  only  in  an  ideal  society.  This  ideal 
society  found  its  perfect  revelation  and  guarantee  in 
the  Incarnate  Christ.  A  young  man's  ideal  there- 
fore must  be  as  big  as  the  purpose  of  the  universe, 
which  is  also  God's  purpose,  or  the  ideal  Christ. 
But  how  does  Christ  include  the  ideal  both  of  the 
individual  and  of  society  ?    Jesus  taught  the  world 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Great  Ideals    83 

that  a  man  attained  his  highest  self-realization  only 
by  imparting  that  self  to  others.  The  ideal  state 
is  that  society  where  each  individual  gains  his 
freest  possible  development  by  generous  self-dona- 
tion. This  law  of  our  being  is  called  the  law  of 
sacrifice.  It  is  in  reality  the  law  of  ideal  self- 
realization.  It  is  Avrought  deep  into  the  structure 
of  the  universe  and  is  of  the  very  nature  of  God. 
To  its  final  triumph  as  the  supreme  law  of  life  all  is 
pledged.  Christ,  Who  is  the  expression  of  the  crea- 
tive will  and  purpose  of  God,  has  sealed  that  pledge 
on  Calvary. 

Friendship  with  Jesus  means  just  this :  that 
Christ,  through  the  power  of  the  cross  and  the  in- 
dwelling Spirit,  is  ever  seeking  to  realize  His  high- 
est ideal  self  through  each  individual  life.  Thus 
Pie  becomes  not  only  our  perfect  ideal  but  also  the 
spiritual  dynamic  for  its  attainment.  But  it  means 
even  more  than  this.  It  means  that  we  enter  into 
and  share  His  friendship  by  seeking  to  realize  His 
ideal,  which  has  now  become  our  ideal,  through  the 
giving  of  ourselves  to  others.  Our  ideal  is  no 
longer  a  mystic,  elusive  shadow  of  another  world, 
but  something  intensely  spiritual,  which  our  eyes 
can  see,  our  hands  handle,  our  reason  accept,  our 
heart  possess  and  our  will  achieve.  He  who  throws 
himself  with  passion  into  the  building  up  of  an 
ideal  state  begins  the  realization  of  the  supreme 
ideal.  And  the  glory  of  it  all  is  that  he  can  do 
this  conscious  that  a  good  God,  an  ethical  universe, 
and  human  history,  working  through  the  living, 


84  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

expanding  personality  of  the  Christ  are  pledged 
irrevocably  to  his  success.  Let  a  young  man  or 
woman  yield  unreservedly  to  this  great  fact  and  the 
heavens  will  open  and  a  voice  will  say,  "  This  is 
My  beloved  Son,  hear  ye  Him." 

It  is  at  this  thrilling  moment  in  every  young  Uf  e, 
when  the  magic  spell  of  the  vision  and  the  voice  is 
upon  him,  that  the  Spirit  drives  him  into  the  wilder- 
ness, there  to  fight  his  battle  alone,  against  the 
forces  of  temptation.  If  you  would  know  the  lone- 
liness of  life  apart  from  sin,  and  the  keen  and 
subtle  power  of  temptation,  set  yourself  resolutely 
towards  the  attainment  of  a  noble  ideal. 

Why  should  we  be  thus  tempted  ?  Temptation 
is  to  the  soul  what  resistance  in  the  air  is  to  the 
bird.  We  cannot  rise  into  the  spiritual  and  away 
from  the  material  without  making  use  of  that  from 
which  we  wish  to  escape.  The  primary  meaning 
of  temptation  is  to  test,  to  try,  to  develop.  Our 
character  is  drawn  out  and  made  strong  and  efficient 
only  through  testing.  "  Count  it  all  joy,  my 
brethren,  when  ye  fall  into  manifold  temptations ; 
knowing  that  the  proving  of  your  faith  worketh 
patience."  Every  temptation  is  an  opportunity  to 
win  a  victory  for  one's  finer  self,  to  come  into 
fuller  fellowship  with  the  life  of  God.  Tempta- 
tion that  seeks  to  drag  the  soul  down  into  sin  is 
the  same  power  as  above  invested  with  an  evil 
purpose.  God  does  not  do  it,  He  cannot.  Either 
it  must  come  from  within  ourselves  or  from  some 
one  outside  of  us.    There  is  no  power  in  temptation 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Great  Ideals    85 

apart  from  personality.  The  mind  has  a  subtle 
power  to  invest  every  such  testing  with  a  wrong 
motive.  Then  it  becomes  evil  and  if  we  harbor  it 
in  our  lives  ever  so  little  it  is  sure  to  conceive  and 
bring  forth  sin.  Let  the  power  of  evil  association 
or  suggestion  become  once  established  and  we  lose 
by  so  much  the  power  of  resistance.  But  if  we 
resist  the  evil  association  at  once,  then  all  the 
power  of  the  temptation  passes  over  into  our  lives 
and  becomes  a  means  of  spiritual  development. 

Temptation  is  to  our  ideals  what  fire  is  to 
civilization  ;  it  will  make  us  mighty  or  consume  us 
utterly.  Vested  with  a  divine  motive  it  makes  for 
the  unfolding  of  personality,  the  realization  of  the 
Christian  ideal.  Poisoned  by  an  unholy  desire,  it 
seeks,  by  snake-like  devices,  to  dethrone  personality 
and  lead  the  human  will  captive,  to  obscure  the 
spiritual  in  our  ideals  by  obtruding  the  sensual,  to 
prostitute  their  holy  function,  to  doubt  their  divine 
efficacy,  to  forsake  them  for  the  golden  glitter  of 
the  world.  Is  it  not  plain?  The  divine  investi- 
ture is  the  secret  of  a  strong  and  victorious  life. 

Just  as  we  saw  that  the  creative  and  energizing 
will  of  a  good  God,  as  seen  in  human  history  and 
in  an  ethical  universe,  is  pledged  to  the  attainment 
of  the  Christian  ideal,  so  also,  we  see  that  these 
same  forces  are  pledged  to  a  final  triumph  over  all 
temptation.  The  proof  of  the  first  is  Calvary,  that 
of  the  second  is  a  sinless  Christ.  Surely  this  is  the 
meaning  of  those  fine  words  of  St.  Paul,  "  There 
hath  no  temptation  taken  you  but  such  as  is  com- 


86  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

mon  to  man ;  but  God  is  faithful  Who  will  not  suffer 
you  to  be  tempted  above  that  ye  are  able,  but  will, 
with  the  temptation,  make  the  way  of  escape,  that 
ye  may  be  able  to  bear  it." 

The  experience  of  our  Lord,  in  His  great  tempta- 
tion, embodies  all  that  we  have  thus  far  been  say- 
ing. No  sooner  had  Jesus  openly  consecrated  Him- 
self to  the  Messianic  ideal  which  surged  through  His 
young  soul,  than  the  Spirit  drove  Him  into  the 
wilderness,  there  to  battle  alone  with  the  most  in- 
clusive of  temptations.  "  And  He  was  with  the  wild 
beasts  and  the  angels  ministered  unto  Him."  Two 
titanic  powers  contended  that  time  in  the  soul  of 
Jesus.  Friends  may  advise  and  encourage,  but 
every  young  life  must  fight  alone.  He  only  can 
decide  to  remain  true  to  his  ideals,  to  forsake  them, 
or  to  use  them  for  a  less  exalted  mission.  The  lat- 
ter form  of  the  temptation  is,  to  a  young  life,  by  far 
the  more  subtle. 

The  temptation  of  Jesus  was  generic  and  in- 
clusive. In  it  we  find  the  germ  of  almost  every 
temptation  that  would  assault  our  present-day 
ideals.  It  took  three  forms.  Following  the  order 
of  St.  Luke,  its  first  is  this  :  "  If  Thou  art  the  Son 
of  God,  command  this  stone  that  it  become  bread." 
And  Jesus  answered  unto  him,  "  It  is  written,  man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone."  Here  we  have  the 
temptation  to  use  the  forces,  pledged  by  the  voice 
from  heaven,  for  the  gratification  of  physical  appe- 
tites. The  power  of  this  temptation  lies  in  the  fact 
that  hunger  is  a  natural  and  necessary  appetite. 


Through  the  LoneUness  of  Great  Ideals    87 

Ii  must  be  supplied  if  we  would  live.  But  change 
its  character  and  you  see  its  tragic  implication. 
To-day  we  have  some  teachers  of  scientific  sociology 
who  say  the  sexual  passion  is  an  instinct  necessaiy 
to  the  propagation  of  the  race ;  unless  it  is  exer- 
cised it  will  lose  its  function.  A  certain  amount  of 
promiscuous  indulgence  is  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment of  robust  manhood  and  womanhood.  It  is  a 
natural  instinct  and  its  moderate  indulgence,  out- 
side of  wedlock,  cannot  be  a  sin.  How  far  will 
such  damning  logic  project  a  young  man  towards 
the  attainment  of  his  ideal  ?  Man  cannot  live  by 
the  physical  alone.  Another  subtle  form  of  this 
temptation  is  to  lose  sight  of  the  spiritual  goal  of 
the  ideal  because  the  pathway  to  its  attainment 
leads  through  the  fields  of  daily  toil  and  common- 
place ministry.  How  can  I  use  God's  power, 
pledged  to  the  growth  of  an  ideal  society,  in  the 
humble  task  of  meeting  the  physical  needs  of  life, 
of  seeing  that  the  poor  get  their  rights  and  enough 
to  eat,  without  compromising  the  spiritual  nature 
of  the  ideal  ?  That  is  the  question  we  must  per- 
petually ask  ourselves. 

Jesus  was  committed  to  an  ideal  kingdom  which 
should  embrace  the  world.  The  temptation  to 
substitute  a  temporal  for  a  spiritual  power  is  ever 
with  us.  This  was  the  second  form  which  our 
Lord's  temptation  took.  The  only  road  to  the  at- 
tainment of  an  ideal  spiritual  society  is  along  the 
pathway  of  sacrifice  and  self-effacement.  Against 
this  doctrine  the  pomp  of  pride,  the  lust  for  fame, 


88  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

and  the  vain  worship  of  the  world,  hurl  their  bat- 
talions ;  but  they  also  use  submarines.  The  Chris- 
tian ideal,  they  say,  is  spiritual,  the  state  is  secular ; 
they  have  nothing  in  common.  You  are  a  fine  fel- 
low with  magnificent  powers ;  compromise  your 
ideal,  make  it  practical,  look  out  for  yoursel:^  en- 
ter politics  by  way  of  the  machine  and  you  will 
have  glory  and  honor.  Temptation  is  most  subtle 
when  it  appeals  to  vanity.  Yanity  is  a  disease  like 
unto  cataract  that  grows  a  filmy  veil  over  the  eyes. 
He  who  has  been  blinded  by  vanity  must  submit  to 
spiritual  surgery  if  he  would  again  look  into  the 
heavenlies.  How  can  I  bring  my  spiritual  ideal 
into  practical  politics  without  ruling  the  worship 
of  God  out  of  my  life  ?  This  is  the  question  to 
be  perpetually  asked,  else  God  and  the  ideal  De- 
mocracy will  give  way  to  the  old  idea  of  a  world 
empire  with  its  suppression  of  the  individual  and 
consequent  exaltation  of  lust,  greed,  and  graft. 

"We  have  been  saying  that  God  is  pledged  to  the 
realization  of  the  Christian  ideal  and  hence  to  a 
final  triumph  over  every  temptation  that  would 
seek  to  dethrone  that  ideal.  The  third  temptation 
of  Jesus  was  simply  an  insinuating  challenge.  Try 
it  and  see.  God  has  promised,  give  Him  a  chance 
to  prove  Himself.  Many  a  young  life  has  thrown 
itself  passionately  and  confidently  into  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  ideal  only  to  meet  with  bitter  defeat. 
He  has  flung  his  hopes  from  the  pinnacle  of  life's 
ambition  only  to  have  them  dashed  to  pieces  at  the 
feet  of  a  jeering  crowd.     What  is  the  trouble? 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Great  Ideals    89 

The  world  says,  win  your  ideal  by  saving  yourself 
and  sharing  the  glory.  God  says,  win  your  ideal 
by  giving  yourself  and  let  the  future  generations 
share  in  the  glory.  How  subtle  is  the  temptation  to 
invert  the  ideal,  to  go  down  to  seeming  defeat  and 
then  to  doubt  God. 

It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  youth  that  its  ideals 
are  fused  with  a  dauntless  hope.  It  is  only  as  the 
slow  years  advance  and  the  toil  and  sacrifice  multi- 
ply and  the  end  of  one's  endeavor  draws  near, 
that  the  temptation  to  doubt  God's  loyalty  and 
power  grips  the  soul  like  a  vise.  The  loneliest 
hour  of  a  man's  life,  apart  from  the  loneliness  of 
sin,  is  when  he  beholds  his  ideal  in  the  hour  of  its 
crucifixion.  This  is  the  hour  of  Gethsemane,  the 
agony  and  the  bloody  sweat.  Shall  I  compromise 
my  ideal,  doubt  God  and  forsake  it  utterly  or  shall 
I  follow  it  through  death's  eclipse  to  an  eternal 
shining  ?  Every  man  must  answer  this  question  in 
the  midnight  loneliness  of  his  own  soul.  Human 
friends  can  come  no  nearer  to  him  than  the  three 
disciples  came  to  Jesus  that  night  in  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane. 

In  the  temptation  of  Jesus  we  see  how  completely 
He  has  entered  into  and  shared  that  profound  ex- 
perience through  which  every  young  life  must  pass 
who  would  realize  his  best  ideal.  From  the  lips  of 
Jesus  Himself  we  have  the  pledge  that,  without  any 
breaking  doAvn  of  our  own  free  choice  and  will- 
power, He  will  enter  by  His  spirit  into  our  lives 
and  help  us  to  a  like  achievement.     ''  For  in  that 


90  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

He  Himself  hath  suffered,  being  tempted,  He  is 
able  also  to  succor  them  that  are  tempted."  "With 
sympathy  and  forgiving  love  He  helps  us  reshape 
our  shattered  ideals,  restore  the  broken  integrity 
of  our  higher  life,  and  pass  from  shame  and  seem- 
ing defeat  to  find  victory.  This  is  the  power  and 
the  preciousness  of  His  enduring  friendship.  He  is 
so  Avise  and  valiant,  so  gentle  and  generous,  so  good 
and  great,  so  very  near  to  each  one  of  us  precisely 
in  being  so  far  above  us,  that  to  mistrust  or  disobey 
Him  is  to  doubt  our  own  best  selves  and  the  love 
of  a  good  God. 

Friendship  with  Jesus  means  the  final  realization 
of  our  ideal  and  victory  over  all  temptation.  It 
makes  the  soul  heroic.  "  Heroism  is  the  brilliant 
triumph  of  the  soul  over  the  flesh — that  is  to  say 
over  fear  :  fear  of  poverty,  of  suffering,  of  calumny, 
of  sickness,  of  isolation  and  of  death.  There  is  no 
serious  piety  without  heroism.  Heroism  is  the 
dazzling  and  glorious  concentration  of  courage." 
There  is  one  thing  about  the  coming  of  Christ  into 
the  soul  which  every  young  life  should  know. 
Jesus  does  not  seek  to  eradicate  the  elemental  in- 
stincts and  passions  of  our  nature,  but  rather  does 
He  seek  to  develop  and  transfigure  them.  Nowhere 
is  this  more  true  than  with  the  two  most  primary 
emotions  of  fear  and  love.  He  only  is  brave  who  has 
known  the  power  of  fear  and  the  passion  of  love.  It 
is  a  pitiful  spectacle  to  behold  the  world  cringing 
and  cowering  under  the  dread  poAver  of  fear.  Yet 
to  eradicate  fear  rather  than  to  transfigure  it  would 


Through  the  Loneliness  of  Great  Ideals  91 

be  as  fatal  a  mistake  as  it  would  be  to  uproot  rather 
than  to  upbuild  love.  Fear  is  the  sensitive  nerve  of 
the  soul  and  lives  by  love.  We  would  not  know 
the  fear  of  death  except  we  felt  the  love  of  life. 
We  never  really  know  the  fear  of  sin  until  we  know 
the  love  of  a  pui-e  Christ.  I  have  no  fear  of  hell. 
I  fear  no  loss  of  heaven ;  but  to  offend  my  God 
and  live  under  the  condemning  consciousness  that 
I  am  incapable  of  friendship  with  a  holy  Christ,  of 
this  I  am  afraid.  Only  a  perfect  love  casteth  out 
fear ;  and  that  by  transfiguration  of  the  moral  na- 
ture. 

"  Watch  and  pray  that  ye  enter  not  into  tempta- 
tion." That  is,  that  ye  fail  not  to  attain  your  ideal. 
To  watch  is  to  prepare  beforehand,  by  right  habits 
of  living,  sound  thinking,  generous  self-giving  and 
spiritual  culture.  To  watch  is  to  discern  the  real 
nature  of  the  temptation  and  insist  upon  calling  it 
by  its  right  name ;  to  form  mental  images  of  the 
good  and  pure  until  by  their  beauty  they  lure  us, 
and  to  form  like  mental  hnages  of  the  unholy  and 
impure  until  by  their  ugliness  they  repel  us.  To 
watch  is  to  be  alert  to  the  presence  alike  of  the 
good  and  the  evil;  to  keep  the  soul  sensitive,  to 
throw  open  the  portals  instantly  to  every  sugges- 
tion of  the  good,  and  to  bar  them  fast,  and  just  as 
instantly,  against  every  suggestion  of  evil.  Let  sin 
but  cross  the  drawbridge  and  you  vu-tually  sur- 
render the  citadel  of  your  soul.  To  pray  is  to 
lift  up  daily  a  grateful  and  reverent  soul  to  the 
divine  presence  all  about  you  ;  to  let  the  spirit  of 


92  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

Jesus  move  unhindered  thi'ough  every  motive  and 
action ;  to  talk  with  God  and  let  God  talk  with 
you ;  to  so  merge  your  will  in  the  divine  will,  that, 
without  any  surrender  of  your  individuality  and 
freedom,  torrents  of  living  power  will  flow  out 
through  the  open  channels  of  your  life  to  gladden 
and  uplift  the  world.  He  who  yields  his  moral 
nature,  through  watchfulness  and  prayer,  to  the 
transfiguring  power  of  the  friendship  of  Jesus,  will 
banish  all  loneliness  from  the  soul,  overcome  all 
temptation,  and  enthrone  forever  the  ideal. 


VIII 

IN  THE  LONELINESS  OF  DOUBT  AND  THE 
MYSTEEY  OF  NATUEB 

HONEST  doubts  are  the  growing  pains  of  a 
nobler  faith.  Every  question  of  the  soul 
is  big  with  future  revelation.  Patience  is 
to  religion  what  research  is  to  science.  I  rejoice  in 
these  words  of  the  great  Pasteur,  "  Despising  as  I 
do  that  vulgar  scepticism  which  would  erect  doubt 
into  a  system,  I  honor  that  militant  scepticism 
which  makes  doubt  the  basis  of  a  method  whose 
motto  is  *  more  light.' "  A  single  doubt  is  a  flimsy 
basis  upon  which  to  build  a  philosophy  of  life. 
Men  have  reached  then-  idea  of  God  through  the 
accumulated  experience  of  millenniums.  Theories 
may  change  but  facts  and  principles  remain.  The 
breaking  down  of  the  nebular  hypothesis  would 
not  dismiss  the  universe  nor  set  aside  the  law  of 
gravitation.  The  change  from  a  static  to  a  dynamic 
and  developing  theory  of  creation  has  changed 
our  view-point  and  enlarged  our  horizon  but  it 
has  not  dismissed  God  nor  changed  the  essential 
nature  and  demands  of  the  soul.  Honest  think- 
ing taxes  every  atom  of  our  being,  but  self-de- 
ception is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  To 
substitute  dazzling  desires  for  plain  duties,  and 
to  dismiss  the  splendid  realities  of  the  soul  for  lack 

93 


94  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

of  adequate  explanation  is  to  encourage  the  growth 
of  a  vapid  scepticism.  But  to  practice  our  duties 
until  we  love  them  and  to  dare  to  act  upon  the 
great  realities  of  life  until  we  prove  them  ;  to  chal- 
lenge our  doubts  as  well  as  our  beliefs ;  to  study 
unceasingly  and  wait  patiently  for  the  unfolding  of 
a  wider  and  a  deeper  knowledge  of  facts ;  to  love 
lavishly  and  cherish  the  ideals  of  Christ  and  above 
all  to  invite,  with  sweet  humility,  the  aid  of  the  in- 
finite mind  ;  this  is  moral  and  intellectual  honesty 
of  the  highest  order,  this  is  the  antidote  for  unbelief. 
Every  young  life  in  passing  through  that  strange 
readjustment  to  dawning  manhood  and  womanhood 
undergoes  at  least  four  very  profound  experiences : 
they  are  a  passion  for  service,  a  craving  for  friends, 
a  deep  sense  of  the  mystery  of  nature  and  of  our 
place  in  the  universe,  and  a  desire  to  spend  long 
periods  in  solitude  in  an  effort  to  solve  one's 
problems.  Many  voices  now  call  from  out  the 
vast  new  world  without  and  from  the  infinite  deeps 
within.  It  is  here  that  much  of  our  doubt  takes  its 
rise.  We  are  bewildered,  and  immature,  and  im- 
patient and  have  not  yet  learned  how  to  throw  the 
spectres  of  the  mind  by  strong  affection's  sturdy 
power.  As  one  studies  closely  the  character  of 
Jesus  he  is  not  surprised  to  find  these  same  four 
aspects  of  life  in  His  earthly  career.  He  had  a  con- 
suming passion  to  serve  and  to  love  ;  He  yearned 
for  the  affection  and  devotion  of  men  ;  He  had  a 
growing  sense  that  He  was  somehow  identical  with, 
and  shared  the  love  of,  that  great  mysterious  "  un- 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Doubt  95 

known  "  and  "  unknowable  "  who  lies  everywhere 
back  of  the  universe  and  who  wells  up  through 
human  consciousness.  To  Jesus,  God  was  the  lov- 
ing, righteous  Father  and  our  Lord  delighted  in 
those  hours  of  solitude  when  He  could  lay  all  His 
problems  at  His  Father's  feet  and  learn  anew  the 
divine  will.  Deep  as  w^as  the  mystery  and  the 
passion,  doubts  never  seem  to  have  troubled  the 
Saviour  of  men.  For  Him  all  truth  and  all  experi- 
ence were  unified  in  that  one  endearing  word, 
Abba,  Father.  His  was  a  simple,  childlike  faith ; 
He  loved  God  passionately  and  He  knew  that  God 
loved  Him,  and  across  that  love  no  shadow  ever 
fell.  This  is  why  Jesus  is  now  so  able  to  draw 
near  and  help  every  young  life  struggling  with 
doubts.  We  are  much  alone  in  our  doubts  because 
we  feel  that  those  about  us  neither  understand  nor 
sympathize  Avith  us  and  so  we  struggle  on  by  our- 
selves. Unfortunately  this  is  often  true  but  never 
so  with  our  Lord.  Never  think  for  one  instant 
that  He,  who  is  the  Truth,  does  not  sympathize 
with  those  who  are  struggling  after  truth.  The  all- 
encompassing  personality  of  the  Christ  compre- 
hends both  the  meaning  of  the  universe  and  the 
mystery  of  conscious  existence.  His  endearing 
friendship  for  the  childlike,  wistful  souls  of  men 
clothes  with  warm,  red  blood  what  would  other- 
wise be  a  vast  abstraction  lost  in  the  ponderous 
w^hirl  of  worlds. 

One  summer   evening  I  was  making  a  careful 
study  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  chapters  of 


96  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

the  Gospel  by  St.  John.  No  one  can  long  study 
these  wonderful  chapters  without  feeling  himself 
very  close  to  the  great  heart  of  all  things.  "We 
were  in  our  summer  camp  and  for  several  days  the 
wondrous  beauty  of  nature  had  deeply  impressed 
me.  The  Sabbath  preceding  I  had  listened  to  a 
sermon  on  the  place  of  Christ  in  the  cosmos.  It 
had  disturbed  me  and  set  me  thinking.  Here  were 
three  lines  of  thought,  mutually  supplementary, 
and  now  converging  for  crystallization  in  my  mind. 
Night  had  closed  in  upon  us.  Even  canvas  was 
insujfferable.  Our  nature  instincts  were  dominant 
and,  nomad-like,  each  one  had  carried  his  cot  into 
the  recess  of  some  silent  shadow.  To  the  droning 
of  a  thousand  katydids  we  lay  down  and  from 
sheer  excess  of  joy  fell  asleep.  Midnight  saw  a 
pair  of  eyes  wide  open,  gazing  deep  into  the  dark- 
ness. It  seemed  as  though  some  one  had  called. 
There  was  no  fear,  no  excitement,  no  deep  stirring 
of  the  emotions.  Overhead,  a  mother  bird  re- 
arranged her  nestling  brood.  Save  for  the  soft 
breathing  of  a  near-by  cornfield  all  was  silent. 
But  it  was  such  a  strange  silence,  not  of  oppressive 
vacuity  but  a  silence  instinct  with  sound.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  give  it  adequate  expression  until 
I  came  across  these  lines  by  William  Watson  only 
a  few  days  ago  : 

"  In    the   heavens  a  silence  that  seems  not  mere 
privation  of  sound, 
But  a  thing  with  form  and  body,  a  thing  to  be 
touched  and  weighed ! 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Doubt  97 

Yet  I  know  that  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  the  roar  of 
the  cosmic  wheel, 

In  the  hot  collision  of  Forces  and  clangor  of  bound- 
less Strife, 

'Mid  the  sound  of  the  speed  of  the  worlds,  the  rush- 
iug  worlds,  and  the  peal 

Of  the  thunder  of  Life." 


More  than  an  hour  passed.  Then  the  moon  arose. 
A  flood  of  mellow  light  diffused  itself  beneath  the 
trees.  There  stood  those  splendid  beeches  rearing 
their  solid  trunks  like  marble  columns.  Through 
innumerable  interstices  gleamed  the  stars.  It  was 
all  plain  now.  The  Lord  was  in  His  holy  temple 
and  all  the  earth  was  keeping  silence  before  Him. 
God  had  awakened  a  living  soul  to  join  the  silent 
worshippers;  for  all  the  obeisance  of  worlds  in- 
numerable cannot  equal  one  humble  votary  at  the 
shi'ine  of  pure  Spirit.  It  was  nature's  sacramental 
hour.  She  was  laying  upon  the  altar  her  sacrifice 
of  a  perfect  obedience  and  receiving  in  return  the 
gift  of  a  new  day's  life.  An  unutterable  hunger 
took  possession  of  me,  a  hunger  created  by  the 
very  presence  of  God  but  which  that  presence  as 
revealed  in  an  impersonal  nature  could  not  satisf}''. 
Yearningly  my  inmost  being  reached  out  to  possess 
the  Infinite  who  was  so  manifestly  all  about  me. 
There  was  only  the  response  of  a  calm  majesty. 
All  that  my  soul  could  feel  was  the  immaterial 
reverberation  of  a  vast  Omnipotence  and  this  is  not 
religion.  It  does  not  satisf^^  Instinctively  the 
inarticulate  cry  arose  to  ray  lips — Does  He  know 


98  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

me  ?  Am  I  really  His  ?  Does  He  care  for  me  in 
joy  or  pain,  in  life  or  death,  in  days  of  faith  and 
nights  of  doubt,  in  sorrow  and  in  sin  ?  Am  I  a 
mere  transient  aspect  of  natural  phenomena  in  a 
world  where  might  makes  right  and  evil  and  pain 
ride  rough-shod  over  tender  sensibilities  ?  Is  my 
personality  a  mere  emanation,  a  "  fleeting  fortui- 
tous formation,"  to  be  taken  back  and  swallowed 
up  in  the  abyss  whence  it  sprang  ?  Or  does  love 
and  a  beneficent  will  as  well  as  mind  and  creative 
force  reside  at  the  heart  of  all  things  ?  "  O  God," 
I  cried,  "  I  believe  in  the  indestructibility  of  matter 
and  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  divine  in 
the  cosmic  process.  I  believe  that  nature  is  the 
outward  phenomena  that  garbs  Thy  living  presence 
in  forms  of  wondrous  beauty.  I  believe  that  con- 
sciousness cannot  be  explained  by  brain  activity 
alone  but  by  some  deeper  unity  that  lies  at  the  basis 
of  both  mind  and  matter  and  whose  '  law  of  action 
must  respect  human  personality  and  its  ideals.'" 
But  is  this  all  we  can  believe  ?  Are  we  shut  up 
to  this : 

"  To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star 
Beyond  the  utmost  bound  of  human  thought, 
To  sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  baths 
Of  all  the  western  stars  until  we  die. 
It  may  be  that  the  gulfs  will  wash  us  down  ; 
It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isles"  ? 

Where  is  that  blessed  fellowship  that  all  our 
deepest,  inmost  yearnings  crave  ?    Where  is  that 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Doubt  99 

intimate  and  holy  friendship  that  all  our  human 
hungers  reveal  like  a  rainbow  of  promise  across  the 
sky  of  hope?  Art  Thou  lost  in  Thy  myriad 
worlds  ?  Must  heaven  and  home  and  love  vanish 
into  boundless  ether,  a  dear,  wistful  dream  of  the 
childhood  of  the  race  ?  Must  the  strong,  warm, 
tender  personality  of  Jesus  melt  into  a  misty  ethical 
ideal  and  grow  dimmer  with  the  receding  of  the 
centuries  ?  Within  that  vast  beyond  which  lies 
about  us  like  a  never  ebbing  sea,  shall  we  know 
Thee  and  be  with  those  we  love  ?  It  must  be  so 
else  Creation  stultifies  what  it  creates.  Life 
without  love  were  a  living  death.  To  live  and 
yet  not  to  live  ;  that  is  the  sad  uncertainty  of  the 
soul. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  the  third  line  of  my 
previous  day's  thinking  joined  the  main  current  of 
my  mind.  Clear,  strong,  abundant,  the  living 
waters  of  Scripture  flowed  into  the  muddy  turbu- 
lent current  of  my  thought.  Xever  has  my  soul 
made  such  a  supreme  appropriation  of  the  Word  of 
God.  It  was  not  so  much  intellectual  insight  as 
simple,  childlike,  personal  appropriation.  There 
was  no  psychic  phenomenon  that  I  could  observe 
and  yet  my  Lord  seemed  close  beside  me  speaking 
anew  those  old,  old  words  :  "  Let  not  your  heart  be 
troubled  :  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  Me.  In 
My  Father's  house  are  many  mansions  ;  if  it  were 
not  so  I  would  have  told  you."  Yes,  I  was  Thomas 
and  Philip  and  Judas  (not  Iscariot)  in  all  their 
spiritual  obtuseness  and  sorrowful  uncertainty  and 


loo  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

deep  heart  hunger.  I  asked  my  Lord  their  ques- 
tions and  back  came  the  answers.  "  I  am  the  way 
and  the  truth  and  the  life.  .  .  .  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father  .  .  .  and  I  will 
pray  the  Father,  and  He  shall  give  you  another 
Comforter,  that  He  may  be  with  you  forever,  even 
the  Spirit  of  truth :  whom  the  world  cannot  re- 
ceive. ...  If  any  man  love  Me  he  will  keep 
My  word :  and  My  Father  will  love  him,  and  we 
will  come  unto  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him. 
.  .  .  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches  :  He 
that  abideth  in  Me  and  I  in  him,  the  same  beareth 
much  fruit :  for  apart  from  Me  ye  can  do  nothing." 
"  True,  Lord,"  I  ventured,  "  as  all  nature  this  night 
bears  witness,  but  it  is  all  so  mystical,  so  seemingly 
intangible.  Like  unto  what  is  this  inner,  spiritual 
relationship  and  how  can  I  abide  in  Thee  ?  "  "  This 
is  My  commandment,  that  ye  love  one  another, 
even  as  I  have  loved  you.  Greater  love  hath  no 
man  than  this  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his 
friends.  Ye  are  My  friends,  if  ye  do  the  things 
which  I  command  you.  No  longer  do  I  call  you 
servants ;  for  the  servant  knoweth  not  what  his 
Lord  doeth :  but  I  have  called  you  friends ;  for  all 
things  that  I  heard  from  My  Father  I  have  made 
known  unto  you."  ..."  Lo,  now  speakest  Thou 
plainly  and  speakest  no  dark  saying.  .  .  .  By 
this  we  believe  that  Thou  camest  forth  from  God." 
So  I  who  once  could  see  but  perfect  power  and 
perfect  law  and  perfect  mind  in  perfect  nature 
writ   can  now   behold   a   perfect  love.    All  four 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Doubt       •     loi 

are  blended  into  one  supreme  personality,  so  in- 
deliuably  personal  and  present  that  I  can  ever 
hear  a  voice  which  calls  me  by  mine  own  familiar 
name. 

The  man  who  remains  true  to  the  fact  of  his 
own  deepest  self ;  and  who  beholds  in  his  heart  a 
love  that  will  not  let  its  object  go,  will  rise  by  in- 
tuition to  the  truth  that  such  is  the  nature  of  God. 
He  wiU  find  that  the  revelation  of  the  heavenly 
Father  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  speaks  to  his 
soul  with  increasing  satisfaction,  and  that  all  his 
doubts  are  but  the  necessary  adjustment  of  the 
new  to  that  which  is  vital  and  imperishable  in  the 
old. 


IX 

IN  THE  OPEN  AIR  AND  THE  WOELD  OF 
WORK 

THE  fields  and  the  workshops  are  the  true 
monasteries  of  the  soul.  Nature  symbols 
forth  its  Maker ;  and  every  humble  task 
well  done  is  a  revelation  of  the  character  of  God. 
Within  cloistered  mountain  walls,  and  amid  the 
stern  struggles  of  social  life,  prophet,  king  and 
priest  beheld  the  beatific  vision  and  heard  the  voice 
that  gave  to  the  world  the  Book  divine.  Every 
great  seer  of  the  Bible  was  a  lover  of  nature  and 
trained  in  youth  to  follow  some  lowly  trade.  With 
his  shepherd's  crook  in  his  hand  Moses  looked  into 
a  little  hillside  bush  and  heard  a  voice  that  has 
changed  the  face  of  human  history.  It  has  thun- 
dered down  through  the  ages  and  will  continue  to 
thimder  until  the  shackles  of  sin  and  political  sla- 
very fall  from  the  wrists  of  all  men.  Who  would 
not  be  a  humble  shepherd  and  tend  sheep  in  the 
back  hills  of  Arabia,  if  he  could  hear  that  voice  ? 
All  I  have  I  would  sell  and  journey  thither,  foot- 
sore and  weary,  for  the  priceless  privilege.  Yet 
every  parent  is  a  shepherd  and  every  policeman  a 
keeper  of  the  sheep ;  while  Mrs.  Browning  would 
tell  us  that  earth  is  crammed  with  heaven  and  every 

102 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     1 03 

bash  aflame  with  God.  David  was  a  shepherd  be- 
fore he  was  a  king.  It  was  then  that  the  green 
pastures,  the  still  waters,  the  dark  valley  about  him, 
and  the  glorious  firmament  above  him,  spoke  to  his 
soul  of  the  good  and  holy  God  within.     His  was 

*'  A  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thoughts, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

It  is  an  mspiring  and  comforting  thought  to  those 
who  toil  unknown  and  uncared  for  in  the  congested 
centres  of  our  great  cities,  that,  for  eighteen  years, 
our  Lord  helped  His  mother  to  support  a  large 
family  by  toiling  in  a  little  carpenter  shop  located 
in  the  heart  of  a  squalid  city.  It  was  a  community 
whose  lack  of  culture  and  beauty  made  it  a  byword 
and  a  joke  in  the  learned  and  priestly  precincts  of 
Jerusalem.  There  is  a  bond  of  sympathy  and 
fellowship  between  Jesus  and  the  sons  and  daugh- 
ters who  toil  unnoticed  and  alone  that  is  wonder- 
fully tender  and  precious.  The  sermon  to  the 
college  graduating  class,  of  which  I  was  a  member, 
was  developed  from  those  words  of  Jesus,  "My 
Father  worketh  even  until  now,  and  I  work."  I 
have  forgotten  all  but  two  things :  a  deep  sense  of 
the  dignity  of  work  because  of  its  intimate  and 
vital  relation  to  the  life  of  God  and  the  following 


104  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

quaint  lines  so  expressive  of  that  feeling.  I  have 
read  and  pondered  their  simple  meaning  many- 
times  ; 

"  '  Isn't  this  Joseph's  son  ? '  Aye,  it  is  He, 

*  Joseph  the  carpenter ' — same  trade  as  me  ! 
I  thought  as  I'd  find  it,  I  knew  it  was  here, 

But  my  sight's  getting  queer. 

"  I  don't  know  right  where  as  His  shed  might 
ha'  stood, 
But  often,  as  I've  been  a-planing  my  wood, 
I've  took  off  my  hat  just  with  thinking  of  He 
At  the  same  work  as  me. 

**  He  warn't  that  set  up  that  He  couldn't  stoop 
down 
And  work  in  the  country  for  folks  in  the  town, 
And  I'll  warrant  He  felt  a  bit  pride  like  I've 
done 
At  a  good  job  begun. 

**  The  parson  he  knows  that  I'll  not  make  too  free, 
But  on  Sundays  I  feel  as  pleased  as  can  be 
When  I  wears  my  clean  smock  and  sets  in  a  pew 
And  has  thoughts  not  a  few. 

*'  I  think  of  as  how  not  the  parson  hissen. 
As  is  teacher  and  father  and  shepherd  of  men, 
Not  he  knows  as  much  of  the  Lord  in  that  shed 
Where  He  earned  His  own  bread. 

"  And  when  I  goes  home  to  my  missus,  says  she, 

*  Are  you  wanting  your  key  1 ' 

For  she  knows  my  queer  ways  and  my  love  for 
the  shed 

(We've  been  forty  years  wed). 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     105 

"  So  I  comes  right  away  by  myseu  with  the  Book, 
And  I  turns  the  old  pages  aud  has  a  good  look 
For  the  text  as  I've  fouud  as  tells  me  as  He 
Were  the  same  trade  with  me. 

"  Why  don't  I  mark  iti    Ah,  many  says  so  ! 
But  I  thiuk  I'd  as  lief,  with  your  leave,  let  it  go. 
It  do  seem  that  nice  when  I  fall  on  it  sudden. 
Unexpected  you  know." 

But  what  of  the  evening  hours  when  the  day's 
work  was  done  ?  It  is  no  false  fancy  to  feel  that 
Jesus  very  often  climbed  the  hills  back  of  Nazareth 
and  looked  out  into  the  great  world  about  Him, 
with  simple  joy  and  deep  insight.  Close  by  were 
the  struggling,  toiling,  sin-sick  and  neglected  masses 
of  Nazareth,  Cana,  and  Capernaum.  About  Him 
the  blue  waters  of  Galilee  and  the  grain  fields  of 
Esdraelon.  Out  and  beyond,  like  silent  sentinels 
of  the  centuries,  stood  the  mountains  of  Hermon, 
Ephraim,  and  Carmel.  But  youth  lives  beyond  the 
hills  that  shut  it  in  and  there  stood  Moriah  and 
Nebo,  Horeb  and  Sinai.  It  is  difficult  to  determine 
which  made  the  deepest  and  most  permanent  im- 
pression upon  the  growing  mind  of  Jesus ;  nature, 
history,  or  the  commonplace  work  of  life.  He  used 
them  all  in  His  teaching  with  a  wondrous  wealth 
of  meaning.  A  little  mustard  seed  taught  the 
wide-spread  and  inclusive  ministry  of  the  kingdom  ; 
the  wheat  and  the  tares,  its  goodness  and  its  per- 
version. The  thorn  tells  us  all  too  plainly  of  pierc- 
ing sorrows  and  choking  cares.  The  blowing  of 
the  wind  explained  the  coming  and  the  going  of 


io6  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

the  Holy  Spirit.  The  thunder  and  the  lightning 
were  the  voice  of  God  and  the  swift  judgments  of 
His  coming.  By  the  rushing  torrents  of  the  river 
and  the  silent  and  continuous  life  of  the  vine,  Jesus 
sought  to  make  men  understand  the  power  and  the 
beauty  of  His  spirit  in  their  lives.  In  like  manner 
He  uncovered  the  rich  spiritual  meaning  of  the 
common  household  and  business  duties.  The  woman 
hiding  leaven  in  the  measure  of  meal  taught  the 
GospeFs  transforming  power  in  the  lives  of  men. 
The  carpenter  laying  his  foundation  emphasized 
the  deep  and  abiding  necessity  of  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God.  The  fisherman  on  the  sea  led  natu- 
rally to  the  supreme  task  of  winning  men  to  a  holy 
life.  The  sower  going  forth  to  sow  uncovered  the 
various  types  of  spiritual  receptivity.  The  woman 
sweeping  her  house  for  a  lost  coin,  the  shepherd 
seeking  his  lost  sheep,  and  the  young  boy  breaking 
home-ties  and  wandering  off  into  the  world  only 
to  return  sore-spent  and  sin-sick  to  his  father's 
house,  were  all  so  many  ways  of  telling  the  world 
that  the  humble  men  and  women  who  toil  and 
sorrow,  love  and  forgive,  here  on  this  earth  are 
not  simply  figures  of  speech,  but  real  foregleams 
of  that  divine  love  that  is  ever  going  forth  to  seek 
and  to  save. 

With  deep  intuition,  our  Lord  comprehended  the 
meaning  of  nature  and  the  minds  of  men.  He 
seems  to  have  had  the  growing  sense  that  He  was, 
in  some  real  way,  one  with  them  all,  and  so  they 
in  turn  came  to  make  up  a  large  part  of  His  con- 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     107 

sciousness.  Most  of  His  time  was  spent  in  the 
open  air  and  in  the  midst  of  the  commonplace. 
Xatm-e  and  humanity  recognized  Him  as  their  own. 
Jesus  Tvas  a  product  of  the  salted  and  unsalted 
seas.  The  Chiist  of  the  flesh  was  but  a  manifesta- 
tion in  time  of  the  infinitely  larger  Christ  Who  in- 
dwells all  things. 


"  This  man  smells  not  of  books,  a  green 

And  lusty  show  He  bears  ; 
As  one  whose  foot  hath  wandering  been 

Where  vitalizing  airs 
Sweep  the  far  purpled  hills.     His  God 

He  cabins  not  in  creeds  ; 
But  feels  Him  where  the  fir  tree  nods, 

And  where  the  south  wind  speeds 
O'er  blossomy  fields.     In  waves  and  winds 

For  gospel  text  He  looks  ; 
And  in  the  hearts  of  men  He  finds 

What  no  man  found  in  books." 


As  the  Son  of  man  travelled  up  and  down  the  land, 
there  was  not  a  miserable  or  humble  life  in  all  the 
country  who  did  not  know  that  He  was  their  friend. 
The  lame,  the  leper,  the  sick  and  the  social  outcast ; 
the  strong  man  of  affairs  and  the  little  child  play- 
ing at  its  mother's  knee,  they  never  once  doubted 
His  friendship.  They  listened  to  His  gracious 
words,  felt  the  spell  of  His  wondrous  presence,  be- 
held His  power  over  man  and  nature  and  somehow 
realized  that  in  Jesus  and  His  endearing  friendship 
humanity  had  come  to  its  own. 

Few  men   and  women   have   been   able  to  free 


lo8  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

themselves  from  care  and  anxieties.  They  have 
been  unwilling  to  live  contentedly  with  their  pos- 
sessions and  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness.  Multitudes  of  people  soon  grow 
weary  of  patient  and  heroic  service  when  it  ceases 
to  lure  them  with  the  glitter  of  gold.  The  con- 
suming haste  for  wealth  together  with  the  morbid 
fear  of  poverty  has  dissipated  the  spu-itual  energies 
of  our  young  manhood  and  womanhood.  They  are 
unlike  those  heroes  of  old  who,  by  faith,  were  will- 
ing to  endure  untold  privations  and  hardship,  as  see- 
ing Him  who  is  invisible ;  to  toil  on  patiently  and 
die  joyfully,  the  promise  unfulfilled.  As  a  con- 
sequence they  have  failed  to  learn  one  of  the  deepest 
truths  our  Lord  taught  from  nature.  They  have 
failed  to  realize  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most  com- 
forting aspects  of  the  friendship  of  Jesus.  Instead 
they  have  grown  peevish,  fretful,  care-worn,  and 
anxious. 

Anxiety  is  the  cutworm  of  culture ;  it  forever 
severs  those  roots  which  nourish  the  quiet  growth 
of  the  soul.  Each  generation  may  have  its  special 
sin  but  anxiety  is  the  heir  of  all  the  ages.  It  has 
followed  in  the  wake  of  civilization  as  Edom  hung 
upon  the  skirts  of  Israel.  Whither  shall  I  seek  the 
simple  trust  of  "  Those  sinless  years  breathed  be- 
neath the  Syrian  blue  "  ?  Wealth  says,  it  is  not  in 
me  ;  and  Knowledge  says,  it  is  not  with  me.  Pride 
and  pleasure  pursue  it  pitifully  and  vanity  seeks  it 
in  vain.  .  The  birds  and  the  flowers  know  the  way 
thereof. 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     109 

*'  No  man  cau  serve  two  masters  :  for  either  he 
will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other  ;  or  else 
he  will  hold  to  one,  and  despise  the  other. 
Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon. 

'*  Therefore  I  say  unto  you.  Be  not  anxious  for 
your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat^  or  what  ye  shall 
drink  ;  nor  yet  for  your  body,  what  ye  shall 
put  on.  Is  not  the  life  more  than  the  food, 
and  the  body  than  the  raiment  ? 

**  Behold  the  birds  of  the  heaven  :  that  they  sow 
not,  neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather  into 
barns ;  and  your  heavenly  Father  feedeth 
them.  Are  ye  not  of  much  more  value  than 
they! 

''  And  which  of  you  by  being  anxious  can  add 
one  cubit  unto  the  measure  of  his  life  ? 

"■  And  why  are  ye  anxious  concerning  raiment? 
Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they 
grow  ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  : 
yet  I  say  unto  you,  that  even  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. 

'*  But,  if  God  doth  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field, 
which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into 
the  oven,  shall  He  not  much  more  clothe 
you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  1 

"  Be  not  therefore  anxious,  saying.  What  shall 
we  eat  1  or,  What  shall  we  drink  ?  or.  Where- 
withal shall  we  be  clothed  ? 

"  For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek  ; 
for  your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye 
have  need  of  all  these  things. 

"  But  seek  ye  first  His  kingdom  and  His  right- 
eousness ;  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you." 

Our  feverish  spirits  never  grow  weary  of  these 
gracious  words  of  Jesus.     They  are  redolent  with 


1 1  o  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

the  breath  of  many  meadows  and  vibrant  with  the 
song  of  many  birds.  In  the  morning  they  are  an 
inspiration  and  a  joy ;  in  the  burning  heat  of  the 
day  they  are  a  cool  shade  and  a  living  spring  ;  in 
the  evening  they  are  a  quiet  sanctuary  for  the  soul. 
He  who  lives  much  in  the  open  air  with  those  whom 
he  loves  ;  who  breathes  deeply  of  the  generous  life 
of  the  wind  and  the  sun  ;  who  knows  the  secrets  of 
the  birds  and  the  flowers,  how  they  live ;  who  has 
learned  the  faithful  round  of  daily  work,  and  who 
keeps  his  heart  pure  and  trusts  God  for  food  and 
raiment ;  who  would  rather  die  poor  than  gain  a 
cent  dishonestly,  and  who  loves  wealth  only  for  the 
good  he  may  do  his  fellow  men ;  who  has  made  a 
little  garden  in  the  corner  of  his  own  soul  where  he 
may  grow  beautiful  thoughts,  and  listen  to  the 
songs  of  the  spirit  and  cultivate  daily  the  friendship 
of  Jesus  ;  in  short,  he  who  seeks  first  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness — that  man  has  learned 
the  cure  for  care. 

Ever  since  these  words  of  our  Lord  fell  upon  the 
anxious  ear  of  man,  the  birds  and  the  flowers  have 
had  an  almost  sacramental  meaning  to  all  lovers 
of  nature.  Many  are  the  weary  men  and  women 
who  have  trudged  along  the  dusty  roadway  of  life 
dead  to  its  wayside  ministries.  I  have  passed 
through  many  conservatories  and  have  stared  open- 
mouthed  at  banks  of  bewildering  glory.  I  have 
stood  before  mammoth  cages  and  have  seen  the 
gorgeous  plumage  gathered  from  all  corners  of  the 
earth ;  but  I  confess  that,  down  deep  in  my  heart  I 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     1 1 1 

love  my  native  heath  and  its  common  wayside  birds 
and  flowers  the  best. 

"  The  meanest  flowers  that  blow  do  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

The  birds  and  the  flowers  are  God's  wayside 
ministries  to  gladden  and  make  grateful  the  heart 
of  the  world.  May  I  too  sit  by  the  dusty  road  of 
life  and  be  a  friend  to  man  ! 

There  was  a  time  when,  to  my  dull  eyes  and 
ears,  all  nature  had  but  one  confused  sight  and 
sound.  'Now  I  never  look  upon  a  modest  little 
flower  all  wet  with  dew  without  bemg  over- 
whelmed with  the  thought  of  how  very  close 
earth  is  to  heaven.  God's  gentle  mercies  fall 
nightly  on  the  parched  soul;  but  only  the  up- 
turned chalice  receives  the  benediction. 

*'  Drop  Thy  still  dews  of  quietness, 
Till  all  our  strivings  cease  ; 
Take  from  our  souls  the  strain  and  stress, 
And  let  our  ordered  lives  confess 
The  beauty  of  Thy  peace." 

The  passionate  outpouring  of  the  nightmgale,  the 
lyrical  melody  of  the  lark,  the  flute-like  thrill  of 
the  thrush,  the  ecstatic  sweetness  of  the  song 
sparrow,  the  royal,  robust  chirp  of  the  robin— 
these  and  countless  other  voices  now  fill  the  fields 
and  woods  with  God's  sublime  symphony. 

There    has   always  been  something  about  the 


1 1 2  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

beauty  of  the  flowers  and  the  singing  of  the  birds 
that  is  deeply  suggestive  of  immortality.  Art  so 
profuse  and  so  unpremeditated  must  spring  from 
the  fountains  of  an  everlasting  joy  ;  faint  echo  of 
that  grand,  glad  ecstasy  when  sin  shall  be  no  more. 
Oh !  I  know  that  He  who  clothes  the  flowers  and 
feeds  the  birds  will  clothe  and  feed  me,  too,  until, 
some  day,  I  shall  stand  in  His  presence,  robed  as 
they  were  never  robed,  and  with  a  song  in  my 
heart  which  they  can  never  sing. 

The  way  through  nature  to  nature's  God  is 
through  the  friendship  of  Jesus.  Ever  since  this 
rich  disclosure  of  truth,  the  world  about  me  has 
put  on  a  new  meaning.  As  Professor  Buckham 
has  well  said,  "  This  personalizing  of  environment 
alters  the  face  of  the  earth  and  invests  even  the 
landscape,  woods,  mountains,  valleys,  with  fresh 
meaning  and  charm.  Who  would  journey  to  the 
dune  save  for  Bobbie  Burns,  or  to  Stratford  save 
for  Shakespeare,  or  to  Exmoor  save  for  John  Ridd  ? 
Who  can  go  to  the  English  lake  country  without 
feeling  the  personal  spell  of  Wordsworth,  or  to  the 
White  Mountains  without  rejoicing  in  Whittier,  or 
to  the  Sierras  without  thanking  God  for  John 
Muir  ?  Still  more  transfiguring  are  the  associa- 
tions of  familiar  places  with  the  personality  of 
friends  whose  spirits  seem  to  pervade  and  beautify 
every  rock  and  tree  and  flower.  Thus  do  we  see 
and  walk  and  live  in  the  light  of  the  personal." 
Tennyson  has  enshrined  this  truth  in  words  of  im- 
perishable beauty : 


In  the  Open  Air  and  World  of  Work     1 13 

**  Sweet  human  hand  and  lips  and  eye, 
Dear  heavenly  friend,  thou  canst  not  die. 


Thy  voice  is  on  the  rolling  air ; 
I  hear  thee  where  the  waters  run  ; 
Thou  standest  in  the  rising  sun 
And  in  the  setting  thou  art  fair. 

"  Strange  friend,  past,  present,  and  to  be ; 
Loved  deeplier,  darklier  understood ; 
Behold,  I  dream  a  dream  of  good. 
And  mingle  all  the  world  with  thee." 

Deeper,  more  transfiguring  and  soul-satisfying  is 
this  truth  when  we  think  of  the  whole  world  of 
nature  about  us  as  so  many  forms  of  beauty  and 
power  that  symbol  forth  the  ever-present  Christ. 
All  those  elusive,  fleeting  aspects  of  sky  and  sea 
and  land  that  weave  their  mystic  spell  about  us 
ravish  our  souls  with  their  more  than  earthly 
beauty  all  but  speak  to  us  and  then  are  gone  for- 
ever. What  are  they  but  passing  expressions  of  an 
inward  invisible  personality  ?  The  whispering 
winds,  the  song  of  the  brook,  the  myriad  music 
of  the  birds,  the  laughter  of  little  children,  as  well 
as  the  "  roar  of  the  cosmic  wheel  and  the  sound  of 
the  speed  of  the  rushing  worlds  " ;  are  they  not  the 
voice  of  Him  who  spake  to  the  storm-tossed  billows 
of  Galilee,  "  Peace,  be  still "  ?  When  once  we  come 
to  see  Christ  in  nature,  then  every  village  becomes 
a  Bethlehem,  every  infant  in  its  crib  a  child  of  God, 
every  hillside  a  Mount  of  Beatitudes  and  all  the 
world's  work  and  sacrifice  the  scarlet  thread  of 


1 14  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

vicarious   Calvary  woven  into  the  warp  and  the 
woof  of  the  universe. 

But  there  is  one  inexorable  law  in  all  this  which 
we  must  not  overlook.  We  can  never  know  the 
real  friendship  of  Jesus  in  nature  and  in  the  com- 
mon work  of  life  until  we  have  first  known  that 
friendship  in  the  secret  depths  of  our  own  souls. 
"  Ye  are  My  friends  if  ye  do  the  things  which  I  com- 
mand you."  "  The  laws  of  friendship,"  says  Emer- 
son, "  are  great,  austere,  and  eternal,  of  one  web 
with  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  morals."  Thus  the 
friendship  of  Jesus  becomes  beautifully  embodied 
in  these  lines : 

*'  O  friend,  my  bosom  said 
Through  thee  alone  the  sky  is  arched, 
Through  thee  the  rose  is  red  ; 
All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form, 
And  look  beyond  the  earth. 
The  mill  round  of  our  fate  appears 
A  sun  path  in  thy  worth. 
Me  too,  thy  nobleness  has  taught 
To  master  my  despair  ; 
The  fountains  of  my  hidden  life 
Are  through  thy  friendship  fair." 


IN  THE  LONELINESS  OF  SUFFERING, 
SORROW  AND  DEATH 

SUFFEKING  is  sensitiveness  to  the  divine 
presence.  Our  sorrow  is  God's  sorrow. 
Death  is  the  final  beating  of  the  wings 
against  the  bars.  He  suffers  and  sorrows  most 
who  loves  most.  The  pathway  of  every  life  leads 
through  the  dark  valley ;  but  the  fires  of  the 
divine  friendship  burn  brightest  in  the  night-time 
of  the  soul.  The  Christian's  death  is  God's  best 
answer  to  the  prayer  for  more  of  life. 

Let  us  think  of  these  three  aspects  of  human  ex- 
perience under  the  one  word,  pain.  The  mystery 
of  pain  is  the  mystery  of  personality  and  of  alone- 
ness.  Pain  and  pleasure  lie  at  the  basis  of  con- 
scious life.  The  first  cry  of  a  little  babe  when  its 
sensitive  body  comes  into  touch  with  the  air  is 
its  first  step  towards  becoming  a  personal  being. 
"When  a  child  first  feels  pain  over  wrong-doing, 
the  crude  beginnings  of  the  sense  of  moral  obliga- 
tion have  been  awakened.  In  the  pain  and  shame 
of  sin  we  apprehend  God.  "  There  is,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Buckham,  "  no  greater  testimony  to  the 
priority  and  persistence  of  personality  than  the  pain 
which  attends  the  pressure  of  the  ideal  upon  the 
human  soul.  It  is  a  pain  which  is  felt  but  slightly 
115 


1 16  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

in  the  lower  stages  of  human  development,  but  it 
deepens  and  intensifies  as  the  race  develops  until  it 
becomes  a  fire  that  purges  humanity  of  its  gross- 
ness  and  impels  it  to  its  noblest  achievement." 
There  is  no  pain  like  unto  the  pain  of  imperfection. 
It  would  eat  out  our  very  life  did  we  not  know 
that  the  perf ectness  of  Christ  can  be  made  ours ; 
that,  through  His  friendship,  we  can  slowly  but 
surely  rise  into  something  of  His  likeness. 

There  is  nothing  that  brings  more  pleasure  into 
our  lives  than  pure  love.  Yet,  "  Love  is  the  mother 
of  pain  as  well  as  of  joy  and  the  two  lie  very  close 
to  one  another  upon  her  bosom.  "When  one  who  is 
loved  scorns  the  sacredness  of  moral  law  or  is  dull 
to  a  great  moral  issue,  it  cuts  the  love  as  if  the  de- 
fect were  his  own.  He  who  loves  deeply  must 
often  walk  with  bleeding  feet  the  way  of  the  cross." 
The  capacity  for  pain  and  pleasure  is  the  soul's 
richest  endowment.  It  is  hard  to  believe  this. 
We  want  the  pleasure  but  we  do  not  want  the  pain. 
Why  will  not  pleasure  do  just  as  much  for  the 
enlargement  and  enrichment  of  life  without  being 
mingled  with  pain  as  it  will  with  it  ?  So  men  have 
tried  to  get  away  from  pain.  Some  people  have 
tried  to  escape  both  pain  and  pleasure  and  sorrow 
by  either  ignoring  or  denying  or  by  so  dulling  the 
sensibilities  as  to  be  unconscious  of  their  presence. 
Followed  out  to  its  logical  conclusion,  this  meant 
the  denial  both  of  their  own  personal  persistence 
after  death  and  also  of  the  existence  of  a  personal 
God.     The  result  was  no  God,  no  friend,  no  great 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Suffering  1 1 7 

fellowship,  no  home  for  the  soul ;  all  that  was  left 
was  Pantheism,  and  absorption,  and  annihilation. 
This  could  not  help  but  react  upon  the  mind  by 
creating  a  dreary  pessimism,  a  hopeless,  shrunken 
and  immoral  soul-life.  In  the  grip  of  this  attitude 
towards  pain,  India  has  lived  for  more  than  two 
thousand  years. 

There  is  another  group  of  men  who  tried  to 
escape  the  fact  of  pain  by  the  cultivation  of  pleasure. 
They  were  called  the  Epicureans.  "The  test  of 
pleasure,"  according  to  Epicurus,  "  is  the  removal 
and  absorption  of  all  that  gives  pain ;  it  implies 
freedom  from  pain  of  body  and  from  trouble  of 
mind.  Its  aim  is  the  happiness  of  the  individual. 
But  its  selfishness  is  tempered  by  friendship.  We 
cannot  live  pleasantly  without  living  wisely  and 
nobly  and  righteously."  The  aim  was  commend- 
able but  they  failed  to  see  that  pain  is  the  tap  root 
of  morality.  In  the  hands  of  less  noble  minds  the 
whole  conception  of  life  degenerated  into  selfish 
enjoyment,  lust,  and  cruelty.  Hope  and  love  fled 
their  Lives  and  joy  died  of  gluttony.  All  those 
tender  and  enduring  sentiments  that  have  made 
life  precious  blossomed  only  to  perish  with  the 
blight  of  materialism. 

Another  group  of  men,  called  the  Stoics,  took 
just  the  opposite  attitude  from  that  taken  by  the 
Epicurean.  "  "When  you  enter  the  school  of  the 
philosopher,"  says  Epictetus,  "  ye  enter  the  school 
of  a  surgeon ;  and  as  ye  are  not  whole  when  ye 
come  in,  ye  cannot  leave  it  with  a  smile  but  with 


J 18  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

pain."  "With  true  nobiUty  and  with  an  all  but 
Semitic  passion  for  righteousness,  the  Stoic  set  his 
will  to  face  the  inevitable.  He  would  not  flinch, 
he  would  not  whine,  he  would  not  find  fault.  But 
his  religion  ended  in  Pantheism,  l^o  loving,  tender 
Father  entered  into  and  shared  his  aching  pain. 
The  human  heart  craved  the  divine  sympathy  too 
deeply  to  long  maintain  this  attitude  in  the  presence 
of  the  richer  and  warmer  teachings  of  Christianity. 

"When  Jesus  came  amongst  men  He  taught  just  as 
practical  and  noble  an  attitude  towards  life  as  the 
Stoic  but  far  more  deeply  religious  and  soul-satisfy- 
ing. I  am  going  to  quote  here  a  passage  that  has 
been  an  inspiration  to  me.  I  have  never  read  any- 
thing outside  of  the  Bible  that  has  satisfied  my 
mind  like  these  words.  They  are  taken  from  "  The 
Mystical  Element  of  Religion,"  by  Baron  Friedrich 
von  Hiigel :  "In  Jesus  for  the  first  and  last  time, 
we  find  an  insight  so  unique,  a  personality  so  strong 
and  supreme,  as  to  teach  us,  once  for  all,  the  true 
attitude  towards  suffering. 

"  Not  one  of  the  philosophers  or  systems  before 
Him  but  effectually  escaped  falling  either  into  pessi- 
mism, seeing  the  end  of  life,  as  trouble  or  weariness, 
and  seeking  to  escape  from  it  into  some  aloofness  or 
some  Nirvana ;  or  into  optimism,  ignorance  or  ex- 
plaining away  that  suffering  and  trial  which,  as  our 
first  experience  and  as  our  last,  surround  us  on  every 
side.  But  with  Him,  and  alone  with  Him  and  those 
who  still  learn  and  live  from  and  by  Him,  there  is 
a  miion  of  the  clearest,  keenest  sense  of  all  the 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Suffering  119 

mysterious  depth  and  breadth  and  length  and  height 
of  human  sadness,  suffering  and  sin,  and  in  spite  of 
this  and  through  this  and  at  the  end  of  this  a  note 
of  conquest  and  of  triumphant  joy. 

"  And  here,  as  elsewhere  in  Christianity,  this  is 
achieved  not  by  some  artificial,  facile  juxtaposition, 
but  the  soul  is  allowed  to  sob  itself  out ;  and  all  of 
this  its  pain  gets  fully  faced  and  willed,  gets  taken 
up  into  the  conscious  life.  Suffering  thus  becomes 
the  highest  form  of  action,  a  divinely  potent  means 
of  satisfaction,  recovery,  and  enlargement  for  the 
soul — the  soul  with  its  mysteriously  great  conscious- 
ness of  pettiness  and  sin,  and  its  immense  capacity 
for  joy  in  self -donation." 

The  old  world  has  tried  every  other  way  and  has 
found  them  all  sadly  lacking  both  in  comfort  and 
in  powder  to  uplift.  Christianity  teaches  the  clear 
recognition  both  of  the  fact  and  of  the  value  of  pain 
as  well  as  pleasure  to  enlarge  and  spiritualize  the 
soul.  Instead  of  trying  to  elude  or  explain  away 
or  stolidly  withstand  pain  and  sorrow,  "  the  soul  is 
allowed  to  sob  itself  out."  Oh,  blessed  thought, 
"  Jesus  does  not  chide  us  for  our  tears ;  He  weeps 
with  us."  "  In  all  our  affliction  He  was  afflicted 
and  the  angel  of  His  presence  saved  us."  The 
mystery  of  pain  is  the  mystery  of  an  enlarged,  en- 
riched, and  deeply  spiritual  personality.  Of  all  the 
pure  and  holy  saints  who  have  reflected  the  pres- 
ence of  God  in  their  lives,  not  one  has  ever  ap- 
proached those  exceedingly  sensitive  souls  who  have 
borne  the  brunt  of  the  world's  pain. 


120  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

But  our  thought  must  take  another  step.  This 
discipline  of  pain  enlarging  and  enriching  our  per- 
sonality here  on  this  earth  is  also  the  guarantee  of 
the  soul's  personal  existence  beyond  this  world.  It 
is  the  fountain  source  of  our  imperishable  hope  in 
immortality.  It  opens  also  to  us  the  conscious 
presence  in  our  lives  of  a  loving,  personal  God, 
suffering  with  us.  Thus  we  rise  through  pain, 
through  suffering,  sorrow  and  death,  into  the  fullest 
possible  realization  of  the  divine  friendship  without 
which  immortality  is  a  dreary  "  orphanage." 

In  the  light  of  all  that  we  have  been  saying,  will 
you  now  read  with  me  two  passages  of  Scripture  ? 
The  first  is  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans.  Note 
especially  the  far,  fine  sweep  of  these  words : 

"  For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present 
time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory 
which  shall  be  revealed  to  us-ward.  For  the  ear- 
nest expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  re- 
vealing of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creation  was 
subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its  own  will,  but  by 
reason  of  Him  who  subjected  it,  in  hope  that  the 
creation  itself  also  shall  be  dehvered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory 
of  the  children  of  God.  For  we  know  that  the 
whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  to- 
gether until  now.  And  not  only  so  but  ourselves 
also,  which  have  the  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even 
we  ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for 
our  adoption,  to  wit :  the  redemption  of  our  body. 
.     .     .    "What  then  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ? 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Suffering  121 

If  God  is  for  us,  who  is  against  us?  He  that 
spared  not  His  own  Son  but  delivered  Him  up  for 
us  all,  how  shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely  give 
us  all  things  ?  .  .  .  Who  shall  separate  us  from 
the  love  of  Christ  ?  Shall  tribulation,  or  anguish, 
or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril, 
or  sword  ?  .  .  .  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are 
more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us. 
For  I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor 
angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  things  present,  nor 
things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor  height,  nor  depth, 
nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord. 

"  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
pain."  God's  universe  is  but  the  expression  of  His 
sentient  life  giving  birth  to  an  ideal  humanity. 
We  are  a  part  of  this  universe  of  God,  and  so  share 
consciously  in  that  pain,  but  we  shall  also  share  in 
the  joy.  "  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son."  God 
has  not  left  us  to  abstract  thought  alone  for  our 
explanation  of  this  mysterious  side  of  our  life.  In 
His  own  Son  He  has  gathered  up  all  the  pain  of 
the  world.  He  too  suffered  and  sorrowed  and 
died  just  as  we  suffer  and  die.  He  was  perfected 
through  suffering.  He  was  alone,  oh,  so  frightfully 
alone,  yet  He  was  not  alone,  for  He  was  ever  con- 
scious that  the  Father  was  with  Him. 

It  is  so  hard  for  us  to  feel  that  God  is  with  us 
sharing  our  pain  ;  and  the  reason  is,  that  in  it  all 
we  are  so  intensely  alone.     We  stand  by  the  bed- 


122  The  Friendship  of  Jesus 

side  of  suffering  or  dying  friends  and  feel  our  utter 
helplessness  to  enter  into  and  share  with  them  their 
experience.  Because  of  this  we  are  tempted  to  feel 
in  spite  of  ourselves  that  God  does  not,  indeed  can- 
not be  with  us.  We  are  forsaken  and  our  dear  one 
goes  out  into  the  vast,  dark  beyond  all  alone,  and 
we  are  overwhelmed  at  the  thought  of  it.  Notv  it 
was  just  to  reveal  God's  presence  with  us  in  all 
this  loneliness  of  the  soul  that  He  sent  His  cwti 
dear  Son  to  suffer  and  die  with  us  and  for  us.  This 
brings  us  to  the  next  passage  of  Scripture  which  I 
want  you  to  read.  It  is  the  eleventh  chapter  of 
John. 

Of  all  the  friends  outside  of  the  inner  circle  of 
His  apostles  I  think  Jesus  must  have  loved  Mary 
and  Martha  and  Lazarus  best.  It  was  in  their  little 
home  in  Bethany  that  His  soul  partook  so  often  of 
the  ministries  of  friendship.  When  sorrow  came 
to  that  home,  Jesus  went  to  them  at  the  risk  of  His 
life.  His  keen,  sensitive  soul  felt  the  loneliness  of 
those  about  Him  and  the  Son  of  God  burst  into 
tears.  The  heavenly  Father  was  sharing  with  His 
children  their  loneliness  and  pain.  It  was  also 
upon  this  occasion  that  Jesus  gave  to  the  world 
those  luminous  and  precious  words  that  have  been 
the  refuge  and  the  inspiration  and  the  hope  of 
Christians  ever  since.  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life :  he  that  beheveth  on  Me,  though  he  die 
yet  shall  he  live ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  beheV' 
eth  on  Me  shaU  never  die."  All  the  loneliness  of 
the  soul  is  here  swept  away  and  in  its  place  there 


In  the  Loneliness  of  Suffering  123 

is  a  wonderful  life-giving  presence,  a  deep  and  en- 
during friendship.  Sui'ely  the  Christian's  death  is 
God's  best  answer  to  the  prayer  for  more  of  life. 

In  addition  will  you  now  read  again  those  won- 
derful chaptei*s  of  John  the  foui'teenth  to  the 
seventeenth  inclusive  ?  Especialh'^  will  you  dwell 
thoughtfully  upon  these  verses,  John  xvi.  20-22  : 
"  Yerily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  shall  weep 
and  lament,  but  the  world  shall  rejoice;  and  ye 
shall  be  sorrowful,  but  your  sorrow  shall  be  turned 
into  joy.  A  woman  when  she  is  in  travail  hath 
sorrow,  because  her  hour  is  come :  but  as  soon  as 
she  is  delivered  of  the  child,  she  remembereth  no 
more  the  anguish,  for  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into 
the  world.  And  ye  now  therefore  have  sorrow : 
but  I  will  see  you  again,  and  your  heart  shall  re- 
joice, and  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from  you." 

As  one  reads  these  chapters,  he  becomes  conscious 
that  their  sweet  and  inspiring  import  is  just  this : 
Jesus  was  talking  to  a  little  group  of  sorrowing 
friends  telling  them  in  words  that  cannot  be  mis- 
understood that,  in  His  heavenly  friendship,  all 
earthly  friendships  shaU  endure.  Over  on  that 
other  shore  they  shall  look  into  His  and  into  each 
other's  faces  and  shall  hear  again  the  dear  familiar 
voices.  Death  shall  be  no  more;  neither  shall 
there  be  mourning,  nor  crying,  nor  pain  any  more. 
God  Himself  shall  be  with  them  and  shall,  with 
His  own  dear  hand,  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes.  This  splendid  and  comforting  truth  Jesus 
offers  to  troubled,  aching  hearts  as  the  explanation 


124  ^^^  Friendship  of  Jesus 

and  the  compensation  for  all  pain.  Suffering  is 
sensitiveness  to  the  divine  presence.  He  suffers  and 
sorrows  most  who  loves  most.  Death  is  the  final 
beating  of  the  wings  against  the  bars.  To  gather 
up  all  the  heartache  and  the  woe  of  the  world  into 
a  life  of  sympathy  and  service;  to  rise  through 
suffering,  sorrow,  and  death  into  an  enlarged  and 
enriched  personality  capable  of  an  enduring  fellow- 
ship with  God ;  to  be  forever  with  and  to  be  for- 
ever worthy  of  those  we  love ;  this  is  to  know  the 
joy  of  the  friendship  of  Jesus  and  the  mystery  of 
pain. 


DEVOTIONAL 


A  Comfortable  Fzdth   "Heavenly  Harmonies.* 

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The  Full  Blessing  of  Pentecost— The  One 
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Dr.  Murray's  most  recent  meditations  urge  nothing  that 
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Our  Silent  Partner 

A  Devotional  Study  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 

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"It  is  a  delight  to  pick  up  a  religious  book  and  discove? 
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Abba  Father  :  a  Month  of  insight  and  Uplift. 

Net,  soc  WILLIAM  DeWITT  HYDB 

Meditations  and  prayers  by  the  President  of  Bowdoin 
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of  good  over  eviL 


CHRISTOLOGY 

^■i  ■  -  ■      '-  III... 

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Sent  Forth  by  the  Master — I  With  a  Message;  II  With  a 
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ESSAYS— ADDRESSES— STUDIES 


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In   hfs'^'late'ft   wnrt    f^^    '""T'^i    *°    P^^^    ^'^hout    ceasing" 
in   ms  latest   work   the   author   has   p  aced   in    a   new   cettinir 

tfcTl  '"He'"dL\'">.""'^\*'^T-   "^-"S    ^"d    intensely"  S 
^■•■jV^-^    °I?'^    ^■'t'l    such    subjects   as    Ideals     The    Finp^f 

TrL'iSfn^'^=;.I^°";i"'.^"^'^^'-.'    ^I°*her.    The    Babe     HeredTty. 
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CHARLES  McTYEIRE  BISHOP.  P.P. 

Jesus  the  Worker 

f.m?  aoV.'Lf  $^%1  ''^^'^"''■P  ''^  '""^  Son  «f  Man. 

and  vW^ofShi's'^^elf /°^  'i°^'-'7^*  scholarly  attainments 
^irM»  -ff  J-  °  A  ^ell-trained  mind  were  known  to  a  wide 
for  inoo  J^"m  Y*","  '^^'■^,  ^^^'^y  *°  declare  that  the  kc^res 
this  Sdatioi  *2li%"-3"k  among  the  best  delivered  upon 
iX  r;  WcKn-  ^^v^'^  foghecy  has  been  fulfilled."— ^a^A- 
Jesus  the  M^n  I'w ''a^\  ^he  theme  is  divided  as  follows: 
jcsus  tne  Man,  f-he  Acts  of  Jesus,  The  Attitude  of  Tesn« 
ThrF,>,-^^  Universe,  The  Constructive  PurS%f  Jesu/ 
The  Ethics  of  Jesus,   Jesus  the  Preacher.  ^        ' 

J.   STUART  HOLPEN 

The  Redeeming  Vision 

i2mo.  Cloth,  net  $1.23- 

C-,  "J^'^  .marked  characteristic  of  this  author  is  the  It^en 
searching  mtp  the  deepest  facts  of  the  soul  experience  Hi^ 
addresses  point  the  way  to  peace  and  power  throucrh  self- 
are  o"f'^faifh^,/'^=  "">"  ''^%?"d  ^^«  as  f">l  of  Ce  as  they 
s^%°LnrSUrL"edTtatioI!^L^^^^^         %:.^:   — ou^ 


FUTURE  LIFE 


J.  H.  JO^VETT 

Our  Blessed  Dead 


"Qearly,  simply,  helpfully,  Dr.  Jowett  set*  forth  the  niMn- 
B  of  the  familiar  words." — Pittsburg  Christian  Advoc 


i6mo,   boards,    net    250, 
"Qearly,  simply,  helpfu 
jng  of  the  familiar  words." — Pittsburg  Clvristian  Advocatg. 

J.   REID   HO  WATT 

The  Next  Life 

Light  on  the  Worlds   Beyond.      i2mo,   cloth,   net  $1.00. 

"A  very  thoughtful  and  reverent  seeking  for  light  on  the 
worlds  beyond.  The  study  is  careful  and  thorough.  The 
subjects  treated  are  of  supreme  interest  in  this  department 
of  thought.  The  spirit  is  Christian.  The  results  attained 
are  _  of  satisfaction  to  all  who  believe  the  truth  of  Jesus 
Christ." — Herald    and   Presbyter. 

JAMES  M.   GRAY 

Progress  in  the  Life  to  Come 

i2mo,    boards,    net    35c. 

What  the  Scripture  has  to  say  about  Heaven  and  Para- 
dise and  the   state  of  the  departed  believers. 

J.   PATERSON-SMYTH,  P.P. 

The  Gospel  of  the  Hereafter 

i2mo,  Cloth,  net  $1.00. 
An  attempt  to  examine  dispassionately  what  the  Scrip- 
ture has  to  say  concerning  life  after  death.  Dr.  Smyth, 
who  is  already  well  known  for  his  famous  book  "How  We 
Got  Our  Bible,"  arranges  his  contents  In  the  Near  Here- 
after and  The  Far  Hereafter.  It  is  a  complete  gath- 
ering into  one  volume  of  all  the  Scripture  has  to  say,  with 
very  little  of  surmise  or  of  theory,  and  its  value  is  pro- 
portionately great. 

EVANGELISTIC  

O.  OLIN  GREEN     ' 

Normal  Evangelism 

i6mo,  cloth,   net  $1.00. 

"A  book  that  ought  to  be  read  by  every  pastor.  Not  only 
by  him  but  by  the  members  of  our  churches  as  well.  Will 
stimulate  any  pastor  to  strive  for  the  practical  application 
of  this  truth  in  his  ministry." — Baptist  Advance. 

EDWIN  F.  HALLENBECK 

The  Passion  for  Men 

i6mo,   cloth,   net   40c. 
"Give    this    book    to    those    that   are    beginning    to    grow 
weary;  give  it  to  those  that  have  never  known  the  gladness 
of  helping  a  brother;   and  give  it  to   the  soul- winner,   for  it 
will  inspire  him  to  better  work." — C.   E.   World. 


Date  Due 

*"  273. 

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